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Planets will align for Venus to become the biggest star

© Michael Cecilio

Williams looking more and more like #1
She always said she would become #1 sooner rather than later. And she surely has looked to be playing the part recently, especially with her tour victory in Zurich, one of the most prestigious indoor events on the WTA circuit. Roaring through the tournament, Venus combined her power and athleticism with a lot more consistency and won her ninth career title without coming close to dropping a set.

Lindsay Davenport has a lot of power, but lacks the mobility. Martina Hingis has a lot of versatility, awareness and mobility, but lacks the power. Venus and Serena Williams have both power and mobility, and it will be these two assets which will, inevitably, get them to the top in tennis. As is commonplace at the top of the tennis tree, players try to find a weakness in their opponents' games and try to strategise a game plan around these weaknesses. But the Williams girls do not seem to have any clear weaknesses besides the occasional bout of inconsistency with error-prone baseline play.

Truth be told, there is more to be impressed with in Serena's game, as she has so many weapons in her arsenal, a lot more variety than Venus, a better forehand technique and also a better service technique which is very reliable in tight situations. It proved to be these differences which came to Venus's undoing at the US Open against Martina Hingis and which proved to be in Serena's favour against the same player at Flushing Meadows.

However, Venus has showed that she has improved a great deal in the past month or two since the US Open. Against Martina Hingis in the final in Zurich, Williams was absolutely relentless. She displayed great power with great consistency and blasted her opponent off the court for the first time in straight sets and for the first time in a championship match. The telling factors in Venus's game had been an improvement in her serve. With the biggest recorded serve in women's tennis (Venus broke the record in Zurich last year with a 205 km/h serve), Venus showed at the US Open that she did not use her biggest weapon to the fullest advantage, throwing in first serves of 120-130 km/h many times throughout her semi final match, serving a number of short, shaky second serves and blasting numerous doubles faults in the process. That did not seem to be the case in Zurich as she was able to rely more heavily on her big serve in tight situations.

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