So the Williams family will have a say in the outcome of the US Open title after all. Today, Venus will take on Lindsay Davenport, although how much she has left to give is anyone's guess. Yesterday she spent nearly two hours overpowering Martina Hingis 4-6, 6-3, 7-5. It was one of the best women's matches seen here since . . . well, the last time Venus and Hingis took to the court in the semi-final.
It began slowly, the two sizing each other up and warming themselves up for the battle to come. Williams, always one to believe her own publicity, had remembered her famous rallying cry, "I am a natural serve and volleyer". But, coming forward at the most inopportune moments and looking like a collection of knees and elbows on castors, she began to rack up the unforced errors. Hingis was doing what she does best, plotting and planning and taking the lead.
A double fault on break point cost Williams the set but served only to wake her from her torpor. For the next two sets she reverted to type, relying on sheer muscle and speed while Hingis tried to counter the threat with angles, thought and consistency.
It was spectacular stuff as the rallies got longer and longer and the tension mounted. Hingis was pulling and pushing Williams all over the court while the American was flinging herself at everything and leathering it back.
Hingis may have been cast as the featherweight in the encounter, but she had enough stamina to ride the punches and do some damage of her own. Her biggest problem was keeping the effort going. If she sent back any ball a fraction short, Williams would pounce, more often than not trying her favoured drive-volley to leave Hingis flapping at thin air. However far Hingis made her run, Williams and her inordinately long arms managed to get a racket to the ball and keep herself in business.
How either woman managed to sustain the level of play or the level of effort in the third set was remarkable. With so much history and rivalry between them, it was sheer willpower that was keeping them going.
Williams faltered first, throwing in a double fault to drop her service and go 3-2 down. The way Hingis held in the next game stated her intent - a brilliant running forehand gave her game point and a winning serve rounded it off.
Williams looked distraught - her father, Richard, could hardly bear to watch. Nipping out for a quick smoke to settle the nerves, he seemed to have given up on his daughter as she buried a smash in the bottom of the net and left Hingis standing at 5-3. He was about to miss the best bit.
As Williams served to stay in the match, Hingis manoeuvred herself into position for the kill. She was already 15-30 up and only had to put away a smash to claim two match points. For once, she did not polish it off and Williams was in with a chance.
It was the beginning of the end. Williams had seen a moment of weakness and, grunting and sweating, she launched one last attack, a monumental effort, and reached her second final.
Davenport had had a much easier time of it earlier in the day. For just over an hour she had been cruising towards her second US Open final, happily pounding Elena Dementieva into the dust, when all of a sudden it started to go wrong. Her young rival was supposed to be no more than a promising prospect, yet for 20 minutes or so she acted like a serious challenger for the title. It took all the nerve Davenport could muster and just a smidgen of good fortune for the No 2 seed to pull rank and make her way through, 6-2, 7-6.
At first it looked embarrassingly one-sided. Dementieva was not so much nervous as terrified, making error after error and dropping 3-0 behind in minutes.
With the first set swiftly wrapped up and the second almost done and dusted, everything was going Davenport's way, even the line calls. But as she stood to serve for the match at 5-2, with three match points in hand, her first service deserted her. Missing another match point and stuttering through the next few rallies, she was broken with a double fault.
Dementieva settled her nerves, fixed her eye on the ball and started giving the American a run for her money. As Dementieva began to pull away, Davenport's feet were glued to the baseline and she was powerless to give chase. Her first service percentage dropped rapidly from 65 per cent to 47 and her lead was whittled away to take the set into a tie-break.
Davenport had been matched stroke for stroke as the decider wore on but, finally reaching her fifth match point, she sent up a lob and watched it land bang on the line. Dementieva thought it landed long and, punting her forehand a mile wide, looked as dejected as Davenport was relieved.
Alix Ramsay
Tennis Correspondent, in New York
The Times
