Williamses serve up another sister act

Once again the Williams sisters missed an important public relations trick yesterday. Had Serena's first victory in a completed match over her elder sister Venus on the WTA tour been fixed, it could hardly have been a limper, less elevating affair than the 6-2, 6-2 win by which she reached the final of the Nasdaq-100 Open.

At the end of the 50 error-strewn minutes some of the crowd did appear to doubt the genuineness of the result. The staccatto first set brought a muted response, and the match meandered into a second set eliciting a mixture of resentful whistles and polite clapping. This had become a small crescendo of boos and whistles by the time Venus dropped serve to go a double break down in the second set.

By then the speed of one of the champion's second deliveries had slipped down into the 50s. The loudest response came from a male spectator who bellowed: "Come on Williams" while Serena was serving for the match, bringing a surge of sceptical laughter.

The Williams are too important and too talented to allow this sort of thing to happen. If they ever do tamper with the outcome, as other siblings certainly have before them, they need to make it look better than this.

Arguably worse was that the match was conducted in the absence of their father Richard after he had claimed it was wrong for his daughters not to have a chance of meeting in the final. Memories remain all too vivid in some quarters of the riot which ensued when Venus backed out of their semi-final in Indian Wells last year.

"I was shocked at the scoreline," admitted Serena. "Venus is such a great player and a great champion, and this is the biggest win of my career. But we don't ever talk about what we are going to do in the match. This is just one win. I think she just had a mental block. She made too many errors. She was very erratic."

Venus attributed this to styles. It was a strange match, she claimed, because the way they played was too similar. They both hit so hard that there tended to be just winners or mistakes, but no rallies. She had heard the whistles, she admitted, but just shrugged them off.

"Monica [Seles] had worse than I did after losing 6-0, 6-0 here a couple of years ago. So I got off pretty lucky I guess," Venus reckoned. And the 50mph serve? "I think the clock must have been off," she answered.

At the finish there were this time no tears, no "I love you's," only a routine handshake. This was always likely to be a better social than sporting occasion. Paper fans fluttered in the afternoon warmth and giant butterflies patrolled the bowl of the arena. Serena, with a shiny orange dress and wheat-coloured hair, looked something like a Las Vegas showgirl, while Venus, in Wimbledon white and with a Lenglen -type eyeshade, might not have looked out of place on the Cote d'Azur in the 30s.

No two women have helped change the way the game is played as much as these; no two blacks have ever reached such a level simultaneously. There was style, attention and expectation. It was just the sense of contest that was lacking. One of these days the Williams will learn how to deliver it.

Serena's one-sided quarter-final win over Martina Hingis which set up the meeting between the two sisters may well have damaged the former World No1's morale but Hingis claims the only injury is physical.

Yesterday she claimed that a problem with her right foot had worsened during the second set which hurtled away in a specatacular 20-mintue landslide, and she withdrew from her doubles with Anna Kournikova. Hingis is now flying home to Switzerland to have it more thoroughly diagnosed befofe the imminent clay court season, still clinging to hopes of winning the French Open, the only grand slam to elude her.

Another former World No1, Seles, signalled she is not ready to relinquish her dreams either. Despite a hard pro gramme since Christmas and a rain-affected shcedule in the past week, Seles had enough left for a fightback in a 1hr 39min slugging match with the French Open finalist Kim Clijsters, her 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 win earning a semi-final with the top seed, Jennifer Capriati.

"This tournament has been a struggle and the scheduling has been a nightmare," said Seles. "But sometimes you need tough matches. Take it a day at a time and it's surprising what you can do." That was a lesson which Seles learned a long way from the tennis courts.

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