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Published on October 13, 2007

Lean and mean Venus Williams showed why she is the favourite to win the US$200,000 PTT Bangkok Open while powering past France's Camille Pin for a semi-final place yesterday.

Moving fast like a cheetah and serving thunderbolts, the American second seed effortlessly dismissed the Frenchwoman 6-1 6-1 in only 68 minutes to

stay on course for her second title in Asia after lifting the Korean Open crown in Seoul two weeks ago.

"The score looks easy but it was not. Every time I hit good shots she hit back. I tried not to make silly errors,'' said a modest Venus, who appeared in a green and white outfit, her fourth different dress on court in three days.

Williams, who has made the event a sort of Bangkok fashion week, will face seventh seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy, who silenced the raucous and enthusiastic Israeli fans while upending third-seeded Shahar Peer 3-6 6-4 6-2.

"She is aggressive and she takes her chances. I have to play my best game,'' said the former world No 1 about her Italian rival.

 The American, who plans to do some shopping at the Chatuchak weekend market, learned some Thai phrases - among them "paeng pai" ("too expensive") and "mai aow" ("no, thanks") - which she hopes will be useful when bargaining.

Williams, however, had already shopped at the downtown area and the Suan Lum night market and bought some jewellery. She was reported to have already spent about Bt400,000 on gems alone.

Pin stretched Williams to the limit only in the fifth game of the second set, which went into several deuces as the Frenchwoman made some frantic chases for the ball from all over the court. But Williams finally wrapped it up with a smash to go up a double break at 4-1. She never looked back from then on and closed out the match when Pin made an erratic drop shot.

The blisters on her left foot failed to stop Pennetta, who bounced back from 1-3 down in the second set to turn the tables on the world No 16.

"I was playing with a tape on my foot and it was so painful. But I took the tape off and started to play better and moved better,'' said Pennetta, who played Williams only once, the semi-final in Seoul two weeks ago, where she lost 6-2 6-2.

"She is a champion and she is going to make the season-ending championship for sure. It's going to be a tough match,'' said Pennetta, who made it to three straight semi-finals after Seoul and Tokyo.

Defending champion Vania King of the United States pulled out in the quarter-finals against Zi Yan of China, citing a lower back injury. King earlier had to resume the second-round match with Dominika Cibulkova of the Slovak Republic, suspended at 8-9 in the first-set tie-break. King, however, outlasted her opponent 6-7 (8-10) 7-6 (8-6) 7-6 (7-4).

In the other quarter-final, Chan Yung-jan of Taiwan, the Australian Open doubles runner-up, took one hour and 15 minutes to beat Urszula Radwanska of Poland 6-2 6-3. She will play Zi in the other semi-final.

In the doubles quarter-final postponed from Thursday, Sophia Mulspa and Varatchaya Wongteanchai became the first Thai doubles pair to make the semi-final of a WTA event when they beat Catalina Castano of Columbia and Edina Gallovits of Romania 6-1 6-4. They were to compete their semi-final match later yesterday against Australian Open and Wimbledon doubles champion Zi and Olympics doubles gold medallist Sun Tian-tian of China.

Lerpong Amsa-ngiam

The Nation

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