Black Tennis Pros

American Venus Williams turning heads on day one action with her play and her outfit. In an updated 'cancan' style, Venus took the Court Suzanne Lenglen by storm.

The key to being able to wear such an attention grabbing outfit is to assure that it does not take center stage - win your match; and Venus did just that. She defeated Switzerland's Patty Schnyder 6-3, 6-3, as pretty much expected.

Venus shared that her look was "about illusion ... a lot of my motif this year..." as it relates to her clothes design.



French top tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga didn't let the home crowd down as he hold off German Daniel Brands' strong challenge at the opening day of French Open to win the first round in five sets on Sunday. Tsonga, eighth seeded, defeated his unseeded rival in 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, 6-7(2), 7-5, setting up a second-round encounter with compatriot Josselin Ouanna.

"It was a long match, but I have two days to rest. I think I should be okay," said Tsonga. "I'm happy I won. The number of guys who have won a tournament having a difficult first round or even had to save match points, I mean, that's very often the case. So, I mean, it's not a big deal."



Fellow Frenchman Josselin Ouanna took his opponent Lukasz Kubot of Poland to task in a 7⁷-6⁵, 6⁴-7⁷, 6-2, 6-4 defeat to set up a second round match with Tsonga.

How ridiculous is that? Amazing how the two are so close together in the draw where one will be immediately eliminated ... incredible.

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Well, there's really not a whole lot to be said here - American Serena Williams came to Rome, re-crowned herself the "real" world no. 1 and found herself on the losing end of a clay-court smackdown - it's all in the game.

In case you missed it, which I highly doubt, during her press conference on Monday at the Internazionali BNL D'Italia Serena stated, "We all know who the real No. 1 is. Quite frankly, I'm the best in the world."

I still don't have any trouble with that statement even after Tuesday's loss. The problem is, when you trash talk before a game, it always looks better if you win ... then the trash talking isn't quite so trashy.

Swiss Miss Patty Schnyder took her clay-court game to Serena with much less fanfare prior to the match and defeated her 6-2, 2-6, 6-1.

Although Serena made no mention of her recent injury, she was either still hampered by it, or she's really got to get her clay-court legs together.

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ZURICH, SWITZERLAND (TICKER) —It has been a while since Venus Williams was in this position.

Third third-seeded American advanced to the semifinals of the Zurich Open on Friday with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over Italy’s Francesca Schiavone.

This is the first time Williams has reached the final four here since winning the hardcourt event back in 1999, when - at the age of 19 - she topped No. 1 Martina Hingis to claim the ninth of her 37 career titles.

The path to title No. 38 could get a bit tougher in the semis as a potential showdown with second-seeded Serb Ana Ivanovic is looming.

Ivanovic, who has stumbled to a 6-6 mark since winning her first Grand Slam title at the French Open, will face Czech qualifier Petra Kvitova in the remaining quarterfinal match.

In addition to improving her record at this event to 12-3 with Friday’s triumph, Williams moved to 5-0 all-time against Schiavone.

The semifinal on the opposite side of draw will be a battle of unseeded players as Italy’s Flavia Pennetta and Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain will square off.

Pennetta, who ousted world No. 1 Jelena Jankovic on Thursday, topped Katarina Srebotnik, 7-5, 6-2, while Medina Garrigues moved through when Victoria Azarenka retired from their match with the score knotted, 4-6, 6-3.

Azarenka appeared to suffer a muscle strain just below her right shoulder during the second set and opted to concede the match prior to the start of the third.

First prize is $95,000.

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