Williamses Hold Title to Open House

By JERRY CROWE

Aug. 28, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

NEW YORK —

Serena Williams could scour the planet looking for the most formidable challenger to her reign as U.S. Open women’s singles champion, but there’s no need.

She shares a home with her in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

Housemate Venus Williams, her older sister, is the hottest player in tennis. After winning last month at Wimbledon, where she beat Serena in an emotional semifinal, Venus has gone on to win three more tournaments in a row and is riding a 19-match winning streak.

“I must say, I’ve been pretty unbelievable,” Venus said this month after sweeping through a tournament at La Costa. “There’s nobody out there hitting the ball like I am.”

No less talented than she is boastful, the third-seeded Venus is clearly the favorite to win the U.S. Open, which kicks off today at the National Tennis Center.

“It should be her tournament to win,” says Tracy Austin, a two-time U.S. Open winner and USA Network analyst.

Among the men, the two-week race to the last of the year’s four major championships is a lot more wide open.

Top-seeded Andre Agassi, the defending champion, and fourth-seeded Pete Sampras, the Wimbledon champion, are expected to battle their way through to what would surely be a prime-time semifinal Sept. 9, but both have been bothered by injuries this summer.

Agassi’s back injury, suffered in a Las Vegas car crash on his way home from Wimbledon, and Sampras’ left shin injury, which prevented him from practicing between matches at Wimbledon, kept the players out of last month’s Davis Cup semifinal at Santander, Spain, where the U.S. team was defeated by Spain, 5-0.

No. 2 Gustavo Kuerten of Brazil, the French Open champion, and No. 3 Magnus Norman of Sweden, a French Open finalist, are the highest-seeded players in the lower half of the draw.

Martina Hingis of Switzerland, who prevented an all-Williams final last year by beating Venus in the semifinals, is seeded No. 1 among the women as she seeks her first Grand Slam title since the 1999 Australian Open. Lindsay Davenport, the 2000 Australian Open winner, is seeded second.

Fourth-seeded Mary Pierce of France, the French Open champion, and sixth-seeded Monica Seles are expected to be in the mix, but for now most of the attention will be focused on the Williams sisters, who won’t meet until the final if they meet at all.

At Wimbledon, the sisters announced that the Williams era in women’s tennis had begun.

“I think that’s pretty much true,” says John McEnroe, a four-time U.S. Open winner and CBS television analyst. “I think Hingis will have something to say about it, and hopefully there will be a couple of other people who step up. . . . But how can you not look at them and say [their time has come]?”

Serena, 18, announced her arrival a year ago, but her joy in knocking off Hingis to bring the family its first Grand Slam singles title was not shared by her sister, who sulked as Serena celebrated.

“It’s going to continue to be difficult for both of them,” McEnroe says of the still-friendly sibling rivalry, “and obviously a lot of people will be interested to see how they handle it--two family members that are so close that are both so good, and the younger one being the first to win. I know that wouldn’t have gone over too well with me.”

It didn’t with Venus, either. After Serena beat her for the first time last October at Munich, Germany--Serena’s only victory in five sister-sister matchups--Venus disappeared from the WTA tour, blaming tendinitis in her wrists. A planned sabbatical of a few weeks turned into six months, during which time her father, Richard, suggested that Venus might retire, or at least sit out the rest of this year.

She returned in May, after undergoing everything from acupuncture to massage therapy to get well. She started slowly, losing to Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario of Spain in a lopsided French Open quarterfinal, but she hasn’t lost since, dispatching Hingis, Serena and Davenport in consecutive matches to win at Wimbledon.

The key to her comeback?

Austin suggests it can be traced back to New York last summer.

“I think it was a turning point,” Austin says of Venus’ high-profile Flushing Meadows funk. “I will never forget the look on Venus’ face when Serena won. She had that hood over her head, hands underneath her chin. She didn’t look too excited, quite frankly.

“I think we all expected, and she expected to be the first to win a Grand Slam [event]. So, I think it was really tough for her. . . .

“I think when she came back to the game, she really realized that she did miss it.”

Venus’ victory at Wimbledon ended the retirement talk, of course, and it did wonders for her self-esteem, pulling her even with Serena in number of Grand Slam titles.

“I would say she’s a little more confident,” Serena says. “I notice that when you win a Slam, players see you differently. After I won the Open, players saw me differently. You can just kind of feel it. And maybe she’s feeling that right now.

“After I won, I won a lot more matches in a row. It was like I had a larger presence on the court.”

Davenport, too, senses something different about Venus.

“They obviously have a lot of similarities--they both hit hard, they’re very athletic,” Davenport says of the sisters, “but I just think right now Venus is more consistent. Last summer, Serena was more consistent. It changes. But Venus is very confident now and not making a lot of errors.”

Serena, though, won’t give her sister an inch.

When the sisters moved out of their parents’ house this year and into their own digs nearby, Serena left behind her U.S. Open trophy.

“I told our parents, ‘You guys can keep that one,’ ” she says, “ ‘because I’m going to get a new one for my house.’ ”

A year ago, she correctly predicted at a tournament in Manhattan Beach that she would win the U.S. Open, making her pronouncement from the court over the public address system.

This year, she was not nearly so bold, though she did debut a new purple outfit, complete with purple tennis shoes, in the Manhattan Beach event.

Later, after beating Hingis in the semifinals and Davenport in the final, she was asked to venture a prediction for the U.S. Open.

“You know my prediction,” she said. “Everyone knows who I pick to win the Open.

“The lady in purple.”

Big sister has other plans.

Featured Matches

Today’s schedule on the show courts and others involving seeded players at the $15-million U.S. Open tennis championships at the USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows. Play begins on all courts at 8 a.m. PDT:

ARTHUR ASHE STADIUM

* Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario (9), Spain, vs.

Joannette Kruger, South Africa

* Martina Hingis (1), Switzerland, vs.

Alina Jidkova, Russia

* Pete Sampras (4) vs.

Martin Damm, Czech Republic

Night Session -- 4:30 PDT

* Venus Williams (3) vs.

Anne-Gaelle Sidot, France

* Andre Agassi (1) vs.

Alex Kim