Skip to main content

Venus, Zvonareva reach final of Qatar Open Tennis


DOHA: Venus Williams will play Vera Zvonareva in the final of the WTA Championships after both women achieved difficult three-set victories on Saturday. Wimbledon champion Williams overcame Serbian world number one Jelena Jankovic 6-2 2-6 6-3, and Zvonareva beat fellow Russian Elena Dementieva 7-6 3-6 6-3.The match between Williams and Jankovic produced high-quality rallies as both players defended well but attacked at every opportunity. Jankovic made a slow start and produced numerous errors, while her American opponent's strong forehand helped her to break twice to lead 4-1.Jankovic raised her game and, although it was too late to save the first set, she took the second. She recovered from 0-40 in the first game, winning nine of the next 10 points and going on to lead 3-0. She held off another threat after Williams broke for 3-2, saving two game points for 3-3 before breaking Williams again for 4-2.The final set was the most closely contested, with Williams breaking for 2-1 and then fighting off five break points to hold for 4-2. As errors once more began to appear in Jankovic's game, Williams broke a final time for the match.In the other semi-final neither player hit a single ace in the two-hour-20-minute battle as they both struggled to produce their best tennis. The first set was particularly disappointing, with breaks in eight of the 12 games and seven of the last nine points in the tie break going against serve.Fifth seed Dementieva served for the first set twice, at 5-4 and 6-5, and she held a set point in the tiebreak at 7-6 before losing it 9-7.Both players settled down and produced some decent rallies, although not on a consistent basis. Zvonareva dropped her serve with a double fault to fall behind 2-0, then wasted a breakpoint when down 3-1. The eighth seed quickly regained the upper hand in the final set, breaking for 2-0 when Dementieva made a backhand error. Although Dementieva broke back at 4-2, when a blistering return forced an error, another backhand error allowed Zvonareva to break once more and serve out the match to love.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Cuba's world-famous cigar festival closes in Havana

Sunday, February 28, 2010 HAVANA: Hundreds of wealthy merchants and cigar aficionados from all parts of the world gathered in Havana this week to bid high stakes for humidors full of premium cigars. Cuba's annual Habanos festival ended on Friday night with an auction of ornate humidors of cedar and mahogany stacked with hand-rolled stogies that raised 800,000 euros ($1.09 million dollars). Habanos S.A. executives this month said cigar sales fell 8 percent to $360 million in 2009, so they have created the Julieta, a smaller, milder version of the Romeo y Julieta cigar, aimed specifically at female smokers. Women now make up only 5 to 10 percent of customers for Habanos. But even with the creation of the Julieta, Garcia said Habanos has only modest hopes for 2010 sales, due largely to a weak economy in Spain, the biggest market for Cuban cigars. The flavor of premium tobacco relies on the soil and climate in which it is grown. The western province of Pinar Del Rio, famous fo...
Post a Comment
Read more

Snake bite deaths

Monday, July 06, 2009 COLOMBO: The Sri Lankan government recorded some 33,000 snake bites in 2008, with most of the victims coming from remote villages.The Department of Government Information said in a statement that most of the snake bite cases could be fatal if neglected.The statement said snake bites are often neglected in Sri Lanka as victims do not seek treatment at hospitals where advanced medication is available. Instead, the victims rush to traditional type of treatment which could be a risk, reports Xinhua.Snake bites death at domestic level, outside hospitals, go unrecorded, said the statement.Most victims of snake bite are from the rural and remote villages where there is no electricity after dusk.Statistics show that Sri Lanka has over 90 species of snake with around 10 species possessing venom capable of killing a human being.In Sri Lanka the annual death rate due to snake bite envenoming is one of the highest in the world being 6 in 100,000 population.
Post a Comment
Read more

Last phase of Sri Lanka war killed 6,200 troops: govt.

COLOMBO: More than 6,200 soldiers died and nearly 30,000 have been wounded since the last phase of Sri Lanka's 25-year war with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) began in July 2006, the defence secretary has said.Defence Secretary Gotabaya Rajapaksa gave the figures for the first time during an interview late on Thursday with the state-run Independent Television Network.By comparison, in the six years and one month since the United States went to war in Iraq, nearly 4,600 U.S., British and other nations' troops have been killed.Sri Lanka had only given its own casualty figures erratically if at all during the final 34-month phase of the war, dubbed Eelam War IV, and stopped giving them altogether last year.The military had said several months ago it had killed at least 15,000 Tamil Tigers in the course of fighting but has not given a final tally.Much of the fighting over the last year took place as troops crossed tall earthen dams and moats to break through into LTTE-...
Post a Comment
Read more