Serena Williams survived a dismal start and erased two championship points in the second set to beat top-ranked Justine Henin 0-6, 7-5, 6-3 to win the Sony Ericsson Open on Saturday.
"When I get down, a part of me just plays better," Williams said. "I think all champions have that."
The comeback was nothing new for Williams, who revived her career by winning the Australian Open in January for her eighth Grand Slam title. Once ranked No. 1, she fell to 140th last July because of long layoffs, but will climb back to 11th today.
PHOTO: AP
Williams closed out the victory with a service winner, accepted gracious congratulations from Henin and then waved her index finger for the cheering crowd, intent on returning to the top.
The match was 39 minutes old before Williams won a game and Henin was twice one point from the title while serving at 5-4 in the second set.
"I said, `I don't want to lose this fast. At least let it last an hour,"' Williams said.
Perhaps she learned how to deal with such stressful situations from her older sister. Serena was a spectator when Venus Williams fended off eight championship points to beat Jennifer Capriati in the 2001 Key Biscayne final.
With Henin serving at 40-15, Williams saved the first championship point by smacking an overhead winner after skipping her return off the net. She reached deuce by hitting a strong forehand to force an errant backhand by the Belgian.
Two points later, Henin slipped and took an awkward tumble, skinning her left knee, and she lost the next six points. She fell again trailing 3-0 in the final set and remained seated on the concrete for nearly a minute as if debating whether to concede.
Henin then rose and rallied for 3-all before Williams began one final surge to earn her fourth Key Biscayne title.
"She's a fighter," Henin said. "It's tough to close the matches against her, because she goes for it. She's a champion and that makes a difference from the other players, for sure."
Playing in only her seventh tournament in the past 18 months -- and her first since Melbourne -- Williams improved to 15-1 this year and 41-5 at Key Biscayne.
Two first-time Key Biscayne finalists were scheduled to meet for the men's title yesterday: 29-year-old Argentine qualifier Guillermo Canas and 19-year-old Serbian Novak Djokovic.
The match between Williams and Henin was their first meeting in nearly four years.
There were hard feelings in both camps after Henin beat Williams in the 2003 French Open semifinals, but they engaged in a warm conversation following the revival of the rivalry.
"The relationship is very good now," Henin said. "We have a lot of respect for each other. We both agree that we are very good players. So what happened in the past is far away from now."
Henin, a five-time Grand Slam champion playing in her first Key Biscayne final, used her vast array of shots to control the early rallies. Williams was off balance and struggled in vain to control the groundstrokes that overpowered top-seeded Maria Sharapova.
By the third game, Williams was flailing her arms in frustration. Two games later, she threw her racket. Then she screamed at herself. She lost the first six games and won just six points in her first four service games.
"I figured I could do a little better," she said.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but