Williams Doesn’t Drop Ball in Easy Victory

Opponents of Venus Williams keep digging deeper into the tennis bag of tricks. Most of the time, as was the case Wednesday night in the Acura Classic, the rabbit stays in the hat.

Janette Husarova of Slovakia, ranked No. 40 and with a game that had about as much chance of handling Williams as John McEnroe has of becoming a monk, floated out the old drop-shot strategy.

Husarova led in the first set, 3-1. Husarova lost the match, 6-4, 6-1.

Such is life on the women’s tour these days, where chasing the Williams sisters has become a weekly climb of Everest proportions.

Venus Williams, ranked No. 2 and two-time defending champion here, said she had never faced that many drop shots before.

“Nope, never,” she said.

She also said, with a chuckle, that the strategy got to her enough for her to try some of her own.

“I was influenced,” she said.

It was a day in which some main contenders to dethrone Williams here got through to the next round with relative ease. No. 3 Lindsay Davenport, in her second tournament back after recovering from knee surgery, beat Marie-Gaiane Mikaelian of Switzerland, 6-3, 6-0; No. 5 Kim Clijsters of Belgium beat Eleni Danilidou of Greece, 6-3, 6-1, and No. 6 Jelena Dokic of Yugoslavia, playing the second night match, beat Anastasia Myskina of Russia, 6-4, 6-3.

Fan favorite Anna Kournikova, attempting to get her first tour title in her 113th tournament, made her way into the round of 16 by beating Jennifer Hopkins, 6-2, 6-4. Hopkins had replaced No. 4-seeded Monica Seles after Seles was forced to withdraw before the tournament began.

To Husarova’s credit, her drop-shot strategy turned a potentially one-sided match into an entertaining contest. Instead of Williams merely out-banging the less-powerful Husarova, she was forced to sprint to the net repeatedly and created interesting angles on the run.

To Husarova’s discredit, trying as many as 15 drop shots against one of the fittest, fastest players on the women’s tour was probably a flawed idea. It made for good theater, but bad results, especially when Husarova started dropping most of her drop shots on her own side of the net.

“I got to hit a lot of balls, and that was good,” said Williams, who hit 24 winners and won 69 points to her opponent’s 51.

For Williams, who was making her sixth straight appearance here, a 2002 season that looks statistically as if it should be a career year really hasn’t been. She has won five tournaments, including last week’s at Stanford, and has been runner-up three times. But there is the rub.

Two of her second-place finishes have been at the French Open and Wimbledon, grand slam events that are the measuring stick for all tour players.

And her losses in those two were at the hands of her sister, Serena, who currently carries the No. 1 ranking and who is not playing here.

Asked about those Grand Slam losses, Williams got quiet and responded, “It’s hard.”

Asked about how she and her sister handled things after the Wimbledon singles match, she said, “Serena was pretty normal. We just went out and played a doubles match. The toughest thing was just getting her to get ready for the doubles.”

Davenport, who broke Mikaelian’s serve at 3-3 of the first set and never lost another game, said that her comeback is going better than she expected. “I’m really happy where I’m at right now,” she said.

Kournikova, who served at an impressive 75% clip, said her victory was “in general, a good match, but not as perfect as yesterday,” when she demolished Alexandra Stevenson before a packed house in 47 minutes.

The tournament sets up now for semifinals matching Davenport and Williams and Kournikova and Jennifer Capriati, who is seeded second but did not play Wednesday.

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