Venus Williams bid farewell to the Auckland ASB Classic on Thursday. The American tennis player squandered a 5-3 lead in the final set in a match that lasted nearly seven hours due to rain and that. He lost to Chinese Zhu Lin 3-6, 6-2 and 7-5.
Williams, 42, battled throughout a second-round match that started just after noon and ended around 7:00 pm, which started outdoors and ended indoors, and featured 13 service breaks. before finally leaning in Zhu’s favor in the final games.
The seven-time Grand Slam champion and beginning her 30th year on the WTA Tour won her first match in nearly two years by defeating Katie Volynets in the first round on Monday.
Venus, who has played just four matches in 2022 and hopes to advance to the second round of a tournament for the first time since 2019, He led from the start as he took the first set with five service breaks in 43 minutes. He was 2-1 down when the first rainout occurred in more than an hour, but came back to break Zhu twice to take the set.
Zhu was leading 4-2 in the second set when it rained again, relentlessly forcing the players onto the court without spectators.. Zhu held serve at 5-2 and broke Williams’ serve again to take the set and level the contest.
Williams broke first for 2-1 in the third set and extended the lead to 5-3, close to the quarterfinals. But Zhu broke back, held serve, and Williams broke again to advance.
Williams left the track after her sixth appearance in Auckland to no fanfare, but that doesn’t suggest her career is any closer to an end either.
“It didn’t go well. Definitely tough. I’ve played a lot of games in my life and I’ve gone through a lot of lag, but it definitely feels like two different games.. It is very difficult outside. It’s raining and windy. It’s tennis, but it’s more about survival than playing well. Indoors it’s completely different, but I was able to hit a lot of balls and that’s important,” he said after the game.
Top seed Coco Gauff of the United States will face Zhu in the quarterfinals following her 6-4, 6-4 win over compatriot Sofia Kenin2020 Australian Open champion.
Seventh-seeded Gauff also had to play indoors and beat Kenin in just 90 minutes, equaling their head-to-head record after Kenin beat Gauff en route to the Australian Open title.
Danka Kovinic, the seventh seed, defeated former champion Lauren Davis 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, and the Spaniard Rebeka Masarova over Anna Blinkova by 6-1 and 6-4.
Source: La Verdad
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