Williams Goes Quickly, Quietly in Loss to Pierce

It has been a strange, silly season for the tennis-playing sisters, even by Williams standards. Venus has disappeared in 2000, pulling out of tournaments almost weekly, and reigning U.S. Open champion Serena looked less than overwhelming in straight-set losses to Elena Likhovtseva and Nathalie Tauziat.

“Where is Venus?” has often been the question this year. On Wednesday, it was, “Where was Serena?”

It was a valid inquiry after fifth-seeded Mary Pierce of France dispatched the third-seeded defending champion with uncommon ease at the Indian Wells Tennis Masters Series, winning the quarterfinal match, 6-2, 6-1, in 57 minutes. In the day’s other quarterfinal, top-seeded Martina Hingis of Switzerland had little trouble defeating seventh-seeded Monica Seles, 6-3, 6-1.

Williams loses from time to time, but not like this. It was her worst defeat since Hingis beat her, 6-2, 6-2, on clay at the Italian Open last May. After the one-sided loss at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden, she was able to keep her composure enough to tell Pierce at the net, “Impeccable tennis.”

Williams appeared close to tears in the interview room and her voice was a bit hoarse, but her praise for Pierce continued.

“I don’t know. Everything she hit was either on the line or a winner,” she said. “What can you do?

“I’ve never played a match where my opponent has played pretty much nearly impeccable the way she did today. There’s some days when your opponent is on, you’re not on. It’s kind of hard to play when you are not playing your best, but your opponent is playing out-of-this-world tennis.”

Said Pierce, who lost to Williams at Indian Wells last year: “I was just really relaxed out there. I played her twice. I lost both times. There was nothing for me to lose. I was looking forward to this match. I’ve been working really hard, just trying to get my game back to where I feel I can do what I want on the court, mentally and physically.”

Several things have changed for Pierce this season. She had laser eye surgery and, after a bad early loss in Tokyo, she trained for a week with her father, Jim. Pierce, who had been estranged from her father for years and once obtained a restraining order against him, would not speak specifically about the training sessions or their current relationship.

“The relationship I have with my father has been and always will be something personal for me and private,” she said. “The best for us is to keep our relationship that way. It’s always been in the public eye. It probably always will be. I can’t prevent that.”

Pierce has been relaxed this week in the company of her brother, David. And after a three-set victory over Corina Morariu, he told her bluntly that she didn’t play well and that they needed to practice. They did and now Pierce is in the semifinals against Hingis.

The only threat Williams posed was early in the match with six aces in her first two service games. Pierce withstood the firepower and won nine consecutive games, taking a 6-2, 4-0 lead before Williams managed to win one more game.

“I didn’t see that raging intensity of Serena that I played against twice in the past,” Pierce said.

Pierce did not face a break point and had only nine unforced errors to 28 for Williams.

“When she serves well, there’s nothing you can do,” Pierce said. “I thought I returned really well today. The key for me was to return well, to serve well, get a lot of first serves in because I knew she was going to attack my second serves.

“I was going for it more. I said, ‘If I’m going to [just] put it in, I’m going to lose the point anyway.’ She’s going to go for it. I just added at least 10 miles an hour more to my serve and tried to hit deeper.”

The Hingis-Seles quarterfinal was similar in that Hingis pulled away after a tight start. Seles led, 3-2, before Hingis won 10 of the final 11 games. She exploited Seles, moving her from side to side and wearing her down.

“I had to just stay in the game in the beginning,” Hingis said. “That’s what I tried to do, keep her in the rallies. Then when I had the chance to take over the game, that worked out very well.”

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* SAMPRAS ADVANCES: Pete Sampras moves into third round with a 3-6, 7-6 (4), 7-6 (5) win over Wayne Ferreira. Page 5