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Williams, Davenport to meet in Pilot Pen final
Venus Williams beat Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 6-3, Friday night in the Pilot Pen and will play Lindsay Davenport in the championship for the third time in four ye
- Indo-Asian News Service
- Updated: February 25, 2007 08:28 AM IST
Read Time:2 min
Connecticut:
Venus Williams beat Daniela Hantuchova 6-3, 6-3, Friday night in the Pilot Pen and will play Lindsay Davenport in the championship for the third time in four years. Three-time defending champ Williams is unbeaten in her four years at New Haven and has been stretched to three sets only twice. She's dominated the Pilot Pen field again this year with her strength, speed and service game. In her two-week rest before the tournament, Williams said she worked on perfecting her toss. "It's been throwing me off I guess just all my life," she said. "This whole tournament has been a lot of great tosses." With serves consistently higher than 110 mph, she overwhelmed the seventh-seeded Hantuchova. The 19-year-old Hantuchova managed to win points on the strength of her precision ground-strokes and occasional well-timed lobs and drops, but could do little with Williams' serves. "It's really hard to react when it's coming so fast," Hantuchova said. Williams scored on 86 percent of her first serves. Hantuchova, meanwhile struggled from the line and Williams pounced on the second serves, ripping winners from side to side. Davenport cruised in her semifinal earlier, beating Anastasia Myskina 6-2, 6-2. She advanced to her second final in four tournaments since returning from knee surgery that sidelined her until last month. Davenport was in complete control against the 16th-ranked Myskina, needing just 48 minutes to win. Myskina was coming off a three-set match against Martina Hingis on Thursday night and couldn't catch up with Davenport's big serves or hard-hit winners. "I knew she had a long match last night and I new Martina doesn't hit as hard as I do, so I wanted to overwhelm her with pace and try and overpower her," Davenport said. "It's been such a great story seeing her come back," Williams said about Davenport. "So I know I have to be ready when I play her." The match is the final tune-up for both before the US Open, which begins Monday. Williams is the two-time defending champ in New York.(AP)Topics mentioned in this article
Tennis
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