Australian Open: Venus Finds Her Old Form After Six Months Off

Venus Williams, renaissance woman. "I like to try new languages. I play the guitar and the bass but I want to learn keyboards. I write poetry in my spare time." And then there is the odd tennis tournament.

After six months away from the game, the older half of the Williams duo is back, and winning matches with an ease that must be galling to those other women who tramp around the circuit in an attempt to better themselves.

But Venus has not won a grand slam title since the US Open in 2001 and has slithered outside the world top 10, even though she was seeded No3 here. Tennis moves on rather swiftly and it may be that Belgium's Justine Henin-Hardenne and Kim Clijsters have opened up a gap that Venus will find hard to close.

However, she has been underestimated before and will be again. Yesterday she reached the last 32 of the Australian Open with little ado, recording a 6-4, 6-2 victory over the 17-year-old Russian Vera Douchevina.

"I could have pulled back, but I really wanted to go after her and play well," said Venus, who described her opponent as "quite good for her age" - with the emphasis on "quite". The Williamses have never been ones to over-praise their opponents, generally preferring to talk about themselves.

Venus's six-month enforced sabbatical, brought about by the abdominal injury she suffered last year, has had its frustrations. "I was OK being away from tennis, but the hardest thing was accepting my limitations. Growing up in the Williams house there was no such thing as 'can't' or 'cannot'. My mom knows that I try too much and she worries for me. She doesn't want me to lose my focus on tennis - which I won't. It's like my lighthouse."

Clijsters has had her own distractions - a twisted ankle and her engagement to Lleyton Hewitt. Neither has appeared to be a handicap here, and yesterday the world No2 romped to a 6-0, 6-0 victory over Italy's Maria Elena Camerin.

The possibility of a love-match double is regularly referred to in the local papers but Clijsters brushes it all off with her infectious smile and concentrates on her own career, which includes casting a watchful eye over the newly-returned Venus. "She looks very fit and very strong. I saw her serving really well, and she is so quick - still probably the best mover out there."

Meanwhile another prodigy is stealing up on the outside. The 16-year-old Russian Maria Sharapova, who lives in Florida, has already won two titles on the WTA Tour and has now reached the third round of a grand slam for the second time in five attempts, her best run to date being the fourth round of Wimbledon 2003.

On this occasion she defeated Lindsay Lee-Waters of the US, a lucky loser, 6-1, 6-3, and tomorrow faces her fellow Russian and No8 seed, Anastasia Myskina.