Serena Williams Takes Advantage of Venus' Missed Opportunities

Posted by T. A. Niles Sep 3, 2008

I recently wrote about missed opportunities, and did Venus Williams ever miss some opportunities tonight in her quaterfinal match against her Sister Serena! Ten set points she let slip through her fingers. She served at 5-3, 40-0 in the first set and lost the set in a tiebreak, after being up 4-2 and 6-4. She was up 5-2 in the second set tiebreak, 6-5, 7-6, and still lost the match, 6-7, 6-7.

I don’t want to mislead you. Serena played incredibly during the pressure-packed moments of the match, but Venus helped her quite a bit with double faults, missed sitters, and a makeable overhead in the final tiebreak. Having missed more than a few opportunities myself in too many matches, I know the pain of missed opportunities.

I suppose it may be less painful if those missed opportunities results in someone you care about reveling in her performance, but I’m sure that it hurts nevertheless. Is it possible for Venus not to replay the many chances that caromed off her strings and into the net or outside the confines of the court? I don’t see how.

In the aftermath of squandered opportunity, images of shots that didn’t quite do what you wanted them to do cascade in a fuzzy avalanche. When you take advantage of those opportunities, there is still a collage of images, but they evoke very different sentiments.

Serena and Venus are experiencing different feelings after the high quality match they played, but hopefully Venus will remember that her baby sister Serena played superb tennis in crunch time. Hopefully she’ll realize that there aren’t many players she wouldn’t have beaten tonight. In the end, the US Open crowd in the stands and the viewers at home were treated to another thrilling chapter in the Williams-Williams saga. Hope you caught it! Game, set, match…