| Saturday, 5 July 2008 Written by Helen Gilbert When Serena Williams enters the press interview room she has presence. Maybe it is the trench coat and gold-quilted handbag, maybe it is her stature, or perhaps it is the quick-witted answers fired back at the media pack. But it was a very sombre Serena that skulked into the room after her 7-5, 6-4 defeat to sister Venus in the ladies final. The 26-year-old admitted she was happy for her older sibling but was visibly disappointed with her performance on the court. “I don’t think I played well. I don’t think I’m satisfied with the way I played today,” she said solemnly. “I think I just lost rhythm and then I just made a lot of errors. I just couldn’t get the balls in. Nothing I was doing was seeming to work.” Serena shot down any suggestion that it was her opponent’s play that affected her game and revealed that she struggled to get to grips with the blustery conditions. “It was just really, really tough. She just started playing – she lifted the level of her game and I should have lifted mine, but instead I think mine went down.” Indeed, the wind appeared to affect Venus’ serve – with a number of aborted ball tosses spread across the match. But Serena was quick to dismiss the notion that she would have complained to the chair umpire, had it not been her sister on the opposite end of the court. “I think it was just so windy out there. She has a funky toss, so I guess she has to catch it a lot. I mean, what can you do about it?” And she added that Venus’ victory “says a lot” about her sister as a grass court player. “She’s won five Wimbledons now. She’s beaten me on grass now, so that definitely says a lot.” In fact, Serena praised Venus’s service – in particular the into-the-body serves that her sibling repeated time after time with amazing accuracy. But she applauded herself for being able to read and return them and with a sly smile warned: “I know next time what to expect and I’ll be even more ready for it.”
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Venus Victorious in Final
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