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Venus's form gives her the edge
Venus is going to be in the driver’s seat in the final. It’s pretty impressive how she was playing below average in the first few rounds and then just turned it around in one match. She struggled to beat Alla Kudryavtseva, not one of the familiar Russian names on the women’s tour, in the first round. In the third round she faced a very tenacious Akiko Morigami, who was leading in the third set before Venus broke back and won the match. But in the next round things would change in a hurry.
Venus went against Maria Sharapova in the fourth-round and her game snapped into place making her look near invincible in a 6-1, 6-3 victory. A quarterfinal win over fifth-seeded Svetlana Kuznetsova was also extremely impressive as was a semifinal straight-set triumph over No. 6 seed Ana Ivanovic. To be able to turn her game around in just one match like Venus did against Sharapova just shows how much her belief system breaks many of the commonly held beliefs about succeeding in the sport.
Venus and her younger sister Serena have shown over the years that's it's near impossible to figure what we'll see from them on a tournament-to-tournament basis or even a match-to match basis. Look at earlier this year when Serena showed up at the Australian Open after a 2006 season in which she played a very limited amount of matches due to injury. All she did Down Under was play herself back into shape and rediscover the form and fight that enabled her to capture the season's first major.
And go back to Wimbledon in 2005. Venus arrived in London following a disappointing French Open, and she showed no signs she was going to stick around on grass for very long. That is until she started playing on the lawns. Once Venus got going there was no stopping her, and she went on to win her third Wimbledon title. A stunner, indeed, but more proof that it's unwise to every count out the Williams sisters.
Venus to unleash her power
There’s no denying that Venus has the bigger first serve than Bartoli since at 6-foot-1 she’s a pretty towering figure on the court. But I was rather impressed with Bartoli’s statistics in her match against Henin -- she concluded the three-setter by successfully getting in 86 percent of her first serves. That’s incredible and a really unheard of level of success. And while the 5-foot-6 Bartoli is not the tallest player on the tour, she was definitely not just powder-puffing those serves in landing them in just the right spots against Henin. But where Bartoli can take advantage of Venus is on the second serve because that’s a vulnerable shot for the American.
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On the service return it will be interesting to see how Bartoli handles Venus’ steady 115-mph serves from well within the baseline. If she can get a handle on those serves, she can cut the angle out because she hits the ball back so flat, which could give Venus some problems. But to keep that up for a whole match is going to be difficult for the Frenchwoman. It's much easier said than done.
A caution would be that we did not see the normal Bartoli out there against Henin. The outcome of the final is going to greatly depend on which Bartoli shows against Venus. Will it be the Bartoli who played above and beyond expectations to stun the No. 1 player in the world or will it be the Bartoli who has lost four first-round and six second-round matches since the beginning of the year.
It will be curious to see what magic Bartoli can pull out of her hat against Venus. It's tough not to expect Venus at No. 23 to become the lowest ranked player to win Wimbledon since the rankings began. Interestingly, if she won Venus would break her own record in that regard as she was the lowest ranked player at No. 14 when she won Wimbledon in 2005.
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