Black Tennis Pros

SEOUL, South Korea - Venus Williams reached the Korea Open semifinals today by beating Marta Domachowska of Poland 6-2, 6-3.

A very sluggish looking Venus Williams went down in defeat today to the Belgium Justine Henin, 7-6(7/2), 6-4. What a disappointment.

Though Venus began the match reacting slowly and making mistakes, I thought that she would pick up her game, which she did sporadically, but insufficient to prevail throughout the match. As was true on Wednesday in her match against Jelena Jankovic, Venus's game was riddled with unforced errors, today she made 35 to 26 winners and served 4 double faults.

Venus managed to break Henin at the necessary times in the 1st and 2nd sets, but ended up being broken at the same point in the 2nd set to hand her the loss.

In the post match interview regarding not feeling well, Venus said, “I’m not sure what’s wrong with me...... But, you know, credit to her for playing well.” Asked whether it was unfortunate that two players of their caliber faced in the semi's, she replied, “It is what it is,” adding she was happy to be playing in the Open after missing it last year. “I don’t see any unfortunate circumstances in anything in life. I just feel fortunate to be here.”

Well folks, with the possible exception of Girl's Junior Asia Muhammad, that's all she wrote for Black Tennis Pro's at this year's Open.

Cheers to all of our players for their accomplishments and their efforts, we're very proud.

There's a lot more tennis to be played for the remainder of the year and I'm looking forward to that!

It took James Blake a little while to wake up earlier today, nearly to the brink of defeat at the racquet of Agustin Calleri. Blake was a bit sluggish for most of the first two sets of the match, but a bit tension between he and Calleri, his coach and the umpire woke blake up and uh oh. Calleri obviously didn't know good when he had it. At 1 set down and Calleri with three match points,the sleepy Harvard man awakened and once again caught fire moved into a tie-break at the end of the second set. Well it was vitually all over but the shouting at that point. The third set was shear Blake dominance. The final score was 3-6,7-6(2), 6-1.

"I was easily just one first serve away from being out of here and on my way to Flushing Meadows," Blake said. "Now that I'm still in it, I feel great and I feel like I'm kind of lucky to be still at the tournament and still alive." I could have been out of here a while ago," Blake told the crowd following the match. "But I'm excited to be coming back tonight."

During the press conference, when questioned about what was going on between he and Calleri on the court, Blake revealed that he thought that Calleri was receiving coaching from his coach and spoke to the coach about it. He attempted to smooth things out with Calleri at the end of the match but Calleri snatched his racquets, waved his hands, said something and walked off the court. But come on, we know that Blake is guy No. 1, he is definitely not the guy that's going to incite ignorance on the court. Get it together Calleri.

The J-Block was on hand in New Haven today providing big time support for Blake and annoyinig the hell out of Calleri, go for it J-Block!




I'M UP NOW, IT'S ON!: Blake Into Semi-Finals in New Haven

Both James Blake and Fernando Verdasco had tall orders of play today. Due to prior rain delays, they both had two matches to play. The third round and quarter final matches.

The wear and tear of day seems to have taken a greater toll on Verdasco than Blake. Perhaps because Blake rested through much of his first match -- HA! The other key seems to have been Blake winning first serve points. He won the match in straight sets with a score of 6-4, 6-2. Blake served 6 aces and only 1 double fault.

Blake's next opponent will be Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu. Mathieu beat countryman Gilles Simon 6-4, 6-3. He has never played Blake, and knows he will be the underdog.