Awesome Venus victorious again

Venus Williams swept her way to another Wimbledon championship, but her 6-1 3-6 6-0 victory did scant justice to the gutsy performance of her opponent, Justine Henin.  

As the rain started to drizzle down again on Centre Court, Williams hit a big return on Henin's serve to which her opponent had no answer.

She greeted her victory with a smile and a wave to her supporters in the stands, before holding the Venus Rosewater Dish to the skies again in a manner which suggested that the trophy was destined to remain in her hands for some considerable time to come.

But Williams - the first woman to successfully defend her title since Steffi Graf in 1996 - will be the first to admit that she did not have it all her own way in a match which proved a fitting tribute to both the women's game and to Henin's rapid rise to prominence.

Williams, 21, was often outplayed in a second set split by a short rain delay, as Henin found range with her searing groundstrokes and trademark backhands, and made her opponent think about her choice of shots.

Henin grabbed the crucial break in the eighth game of the match when Williams shunted a backhand into the net, and served out nervelessly to level the match.

It had hardly come as a surprise that Henin had lost the first set, as she had done in three of her matches en route to the final, most notably her semi-final victory over Jennifer Capriati.

Williams breezed through the first set with breaks in the fourth and sixth games, and to her credit she responded like a true champion after Henin had pinched the second set.

Williams had done much the same against Lindsay Davenport in her semi-final, raising the tempo of her game and forcing Henin to make the mistakes under pressure which proved decisive.