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| November 11, 2002 | Monday | Ramazan 5, 1423 |
Serena demolishes weary Dokic
LOS ANGELES, Nov 10: World number one Serena Williams pounded a weary Jelena Dokic 7-6 6-0 Saturday to move into the semifinals of the $3 million WTA Championships and towards a possible season-ending showdown with her sister Venus.
Looking to cap a memorable year by adding a second WTA title to three grand slam wins, defending champion Serena next meets third seed Jennifer Capriati, who booked her place in the last four with a 6-2 4-6 6-1 win over unseeded Bulgarian Magdalena Maleeva.
Sunday’s other semi-final will pit Venus Williams, who lost to her younger sister in this season’s Wimbledon, French and U.S. Open finals, against fifth seed Kim Clijsters of Belgium.
Playing her first tournament since lifting her season-leading eighth title six weeks ago in Leipzig, Serena took exactly one hour to dispose of Dokic, who was playing in her 29th event, as many as the Williams sisters combined.
Wearing the skin-tight black catsuit that set the tennis fashion world abuzz at the U.S. Open, Williams made a shaky start as Dokic registered the early break and bolted in to a 3-0 lead.
Williams broke back but continued to struggle, unable to stamp her authority on the contest until the tie-break which she swept 7-1, Dokic double-faulting on the first set point.
The effort appeared to deflate Dokic, the eighth-seeded Yugoslav offering only token resistance the rest of the way as Williams raced through the second set in just 20 minutes.
It was Williams’s third win in as many meetings with Dokic, who has yet to take a set from the 21-year-old American.
Quarterfinal results (prefix number denotes seeding):
3-Jennifer Capriati (U.S.) beat Magdalena Maleeva (Bulgaria) 6-2 4-6 6-1; 1-Serena Williams (U.S.) beat Jelena Dokic (Yugoslavia) 7-6 (7-1) 6-0.
PATTAYA (Thailand): Angelique Widjaja of Indonesia won her second WTA title when she defeated South Korea’s Cho Yeon Jeong 6-2 6-4 in the final of the $110,000 Volvo Women’s Open Sunday.
After both players broke serve in the opening two games, each held serve before Widjaja, playing in only her second WTA final, broke Cho in the sixth game to go 4-2 up, and then held serve to lead 5-2.
The Korean double faulted to give Widjaja set point at 5-2, and a mishit cross court return gave the Indonesian the first set.
In the second set Cho immediately broke her 17-year-old opponent’s serve and then held to go 2-0 up as the Indonesian, clearly feeling the affects of beating top seed Tatiana Panova in three sets in the semi-final and then playing in the doubles, began to tire.
However she then found her second wind as the Korean suffered a leg injury and fought back to 3-2 down.
Cho received treatment from the tournament doctor before the sixth game and then dropped serve to allow Widjaja to tie the set at 3-3.
The Korean then immediately broke back but it was the end of her resistance and she dropped serve again. Widjaja then held serve to take a 5-4 lead and then broke Cho’s serve again with her cross-court winner on match point giving her the title.—Reuters
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