Venus Is More Than Just a Bright Star

Quotes you won’t hear from Venus Williams:

“I take it one point at a time.”

“How did I play? Well, you tell me.”

“I just want to give 100%.”

Williams might have separated herself from the rest of the women’s tennis tour--purple, green and white beads in her hair tend to do that--but her thoughtful, lively post-match responses also set the 17-year-old apart.

She managed to enliven a relatively quiet first day at the $450,000 Toshiba Tennis Classic at La Costa on Monday after her 7-6 (7-4), 6-4 victory over American Sandra Cacic in the final round of qualifying. Williams will play Florencia Labat of Argentina today in the first round. The winner will meet top-ranked Martina Hingis in the second.

This tournament is Williams’ first since Wimbledon, where she was making her debut, and where English tabloids had great fun in analyzing--in detail--the anatomies of female players. Was it unfair that the male players were ignored?

She paused and laughed a little, saying, “Well . . . I guess most of the writers are men. And I don’t think they should write too much about the men’s appearances.

“Most of them at my press conferences [at Wimbledon] were men. I think it is much better for them to write about the female appearance, to be honest.”

Williams lost in the first round at Wimbledon to Magdalena Grzybowska, 4-6, 6-2, 6-4, and promptly recovered from her disappointment with a dizzying array of high school studies as she tried to complete six weeks’ worth of work in 25 days.

“We had to study ‘Byzantine,’ ” she said. “I didn’t like that. It was kind of boring. Usually, it’s not even boring for me. I love U.S. history. Everyone else didn’t like it. I got A’s in that. It’s easy for me to remember. It’s kind of like a story and I can remember a lot of stuff.”

Her younger sister Serena, who sat nearby in her tennis togs, helped her get through the heavy book work.

“We were up late at night,” Venus said. “I did five nights up until 1. I can usually go until 1, but after that my eyes start hurting.”

Williams, who is ranked 64th, even had an original answer when asked a routine question: What is the best thing about a teenage tennis player?

“The best part about playing professional tennis would have to be the ball kids, because when I play matches at home I have to go get the balls and after a while you don’t want to do that anymore,” she said. “I have them get me the towel, get me water, umbrellas--it’s a good thing.

“I say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and tell them to roll the balls down [to the other end of the court]. Some of them get excited.”

Williams grew up in Compton before moving to Florida in the early ‘90s and is starting to see some of her old junior friends from Southern California on the tour. One of them is 16-year-old Alexandra Stevenson of San Diego. Stevenson received a wild-card berth here and is scheduled to play tonight against Ai Sugiyama in the first round. Stevenson, who was ranked No. 5 in the nation last year in the girls’ 18-and-under division, used to play against Williams.

“I saw [Stevenson] play at Indian Wells and I was extremely surprised at how much better she had gotten,” Williams said. “Her one-handed backhand is very good, especially down the line. And her serve is very big. I didn’t think it would be that big. She really has gotten much better than what I thought she was in juniors.

“Of course, I don’t dwell on other people’s games. But she’s doing very well. She just needs to get a little bit more experience. Not everyone needs match play and experience, but other people do.”

Tennis Notes

A few first-round matches were played: No. 8-seeded Irina Spirlea beat Elena Likhovtseva, 6-3, 6-3, and Sandrine Testud defeated Asa Carlsson, 6-1, 6-2. In the featured night match, Chanda Rubin defaulted while trailing, 7-5 (3-0), to Helena Sukova because of an injured right ankle and was taken to a nearby hospital for X-rays. She suffered the injury while trailing, 6-5, in the first set.

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TODAY’S FEATURED MATCHES

Toshiba Classic

STADIUM COURT

Beginning at 11 a.m.

* Venus Williams vs. Florencia Labat, Argentina

* Anke Huber, Germany, vs. Magdalena Maleeva, Bulgaria

*

Beginning at 7 p.m.

* Amy Frazier vs. Mary Pierce, France

* Ai Sugiyama, Japan, vs. Alexandra Stevenson