Avoiding wipeouts and self-torture

"I didn't play up to my level at Wimbledon, but she served 115 mph averaging 75 percent [of first serves in]," Sharapova said. "I'd be happy serving 75 percent and serving between 108-110 mph. But I'm not just relying on my serve. It's a key on grass, but I don't like to look at those matches. This is a new opportunity. On my return, you just don't want to return the ball, so I have to be aggressive and be smart. She can hit laser beams, too."

As Sharapova said, she and Venus are at two completely different stages of their career. One is 20-years-old, the other is 27. One has two Slam crowns and the other owns six. Venus knows what it takes to go back to back at Slams, having done so at Wimby and the USO in 2000 and 2001. Sharapova is still re-working her mental approach to endless seasons.

"When I won Wimbledon at 17, I thought I was the bomb and would win every singles match and go out and blow everyone away and I was completely wrong," she said. "It took a while to realize that. No matter how confident you are, you have to live in reality. Sometimes you run into players who are too good on the day. After I won the Open last year, I rolled with the confidence, rather than thinking I was going to win every match."

CHAKVETADZE WINS BIGGEST MATCH OF CAREER
Not many observers gave Chakvetadze much of a chance to best Williams, as she had gone down quickly to her in Fed Cup three weeks ago. Moreover, it’s not as if the whole world was watching her Cincinnati and Stanford triumphs. But she’s a super-smooth player who has learned the value of fight and, with Venus sporadic off the ground, she knew she had a chance.

She blew two set points in the first set and a chance to snare the tiebreak and lost it. Then she faced a 3-5 deficit in the second set and a match point. But Venus cocked her wrist too much and spun a ball into the net and double faulted.

“I should have done something different, anything to get it in,” Williams said.

After that, the 20-year-old Russian spun Williams around off the ground and with Serena watching from court side, Venus lost all steam.

In notching her twelvth-straight victory on US soil, Anna C. won the match when she powered a 105-mph service winner.

“This is the biggest win of my career,” said Chakvetadze. “I was fighting to the end. It was a very emotional win to beat Venus in the United States, but the crowd was very good and supported me.”

After shaking her head for a few minutes in press conference, Williams laughed quite a bit and then said she’s blaming everybody for the loss. “I’m looking to blame someone, anyone, everybody,” she said. “I’m at the end of my rope now. I’m very disappointed. I thought I had a great chance not to lose a match this summer, but I should have planned my schedule better. I’m feeling maxed out.”

Venus had promised in the summer of 2005 that she would never do what she did again this summer – win Wimbledon, play Fed Cup, World TeamTennis and then head straight into tournament play. But she did it again and paid for it. She’s super loyal to Fed Cup captain Zina Garrison and WTT owner Billie Jean King, let alone San Diego, where she’s a three-time titlist.

“I have to turn on Oprah and learn to say no,” she joked.

Mal Taam/MALTphoto Tell it to Bruce Springsteen: Elena Dementieva was born to run.

DEMENTIEVA'S
SELF-TORTURE
Elena Dementieva has been a terrific player on US hard courts over the yeasr, reaching the '04 US Open final, winning LA last year and reaching the '06 Indian Wells and '04 Miami finals.

It's hard to say if she's all the way back though, but she sprinting without straining again and for a woman exists to run, that's a very good sign. She knocked off fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko 6-2, 6-4 and will face Patty Schnyder, who won the big points from Nadia Petrova in 6-4, 6-4 victory.

It was easier to see Kirilenko upsetting Jelena Jankovic in the prior round, because she's no Russian elder. But Dementieva rarely plays outside of herself. She may be under whelming at times, but what you get is what you see: hard, penetrating ground strokes and terrific movement. This week, she's serving very well, getting up to 110 mph on her flat first serve down the tee, and in the 90s on her topspin second serve. I'm reticent to ask her about it, because in the past, when she's been drilled about her serve in press conference, the jinx has come in during her next match and then I'll have to watch that awful, swerving, side-armed slice second serve against Schnyder and I simply can't handle it anymore.

Dementieva was asked in her press conference to recall her spring nightmare, when she claims a Russian trainer busted three of her ribs while she was undergoing resistance training. I won't re-tell that tale here, but for those of you who missed the story I did during Roland Garros, here's the link.

But after hearing Dementieva rediscuss her time off, I asked why so many other veterans have done turned forced rest into a positive and she.

"My body is used to work during the day and when you are six weeks with broken ribs, you can't do anything," she said. "That's why I had such a depression. It was just a waste of time in my schedule."

One might think that an intelligent 25-year-old might enjoy reading, listening to music or watching movies. But, not Dementieva.

"You aren't enjoying it in those moments," she said. "I spent some time with my family, but I really wanted to play and I was watching a lot of tennis on TV and I really wanted to play those tournaments."

So why not turn off the TV and avoid the torture?

"You just can't get away from the tour," she said with a cackle. "I just like to play.

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