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Wednesday, January 24, 2001
Williams advances at Australian Open
American defeats Coetzer, will take on either sister Serena or Hingis in semis
By Steven Wine
Associated Press
MELBOURNE, Australia - One game from defeat, Venus Williams rallied Wednesday to beat Amanda Coetzer 2-6, 6-1, 8-6 and reach the Australian Open semifinals for the first time.
The third-seeded Williams overcame a ragged start and a 5-3 deficit in the final set. She won despite a whopping 56 unforced errors.
Williams needs two more victories for her third consecutive Grand Slam tournament title. Her opponent in the semifinals Thursday will be the winner of the last women's quarterfinal match between her sister, No. 6-seeded Serena Williams, and No. 1 Martina Hingis.
Defending champion Lindsay Davenport, seeded second, will play No. 12 Jennifer Capriati in the other semifinal.
Defending men's champ Andre Agassi, seeded sixth, will play No. 12 Patrick Rafter in the men's semifinals Thursday night. Rafter reached the final four in his country's biggest tournament for the first time by beating No. 14 Dominik Hrbaty 6-2, 6-7 (4), 7-5, 6-0 Tuesday night.
No. 5 Yevgeny Kafelnikov was the top-seeded player remaining in the other half of the draw.
The start of the Williams-Coetzer match was delayed half an hour by a shower that caught tournament officials by surprise. Play began after the retractable center court roof was closed for only the second time in the tournament.
When the match finally began, Williams wasn't ready. The 5-foot-2 Coetzer kept the ball in play and waited for errors by an erratic Williams, who lost the first eight points, lost 16 of the first 19 and fell behind 4-0. In the first set she committed 19 errors and hit just one winner.
"Let's go, Venus, wake up!" a fan shouted.
She did, holding serve with an ace to start the second set, then breaking for the first time when Coetzer double-faulted. Mistakes began to creep into the South African's game, while Williams tamed her wild strokes somewhat.
But the rallies became especially sloppy down the stretch. Coetzer served for the victory at 5-3 but quickly committed four unforced errors and lost the game. Williams then had a chance to serve it out at 6-5, but won only one point, double-faulted and hit three groundstrokes wide to lose the game.
Williams broke again, then closed the ragged victory with an overhead winner. She smiled and sagged her shoulders in relief.
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© 2001,
a Scripps Howard newspaper. All rights reserved.
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