Venus Claims Victory in Dubai

Venus celebrates after defeating France's Virginie Razzano in yesterday's Barclay's Dubai Tennis Championship final.

Venus Williams won the 40th title of her career yesterday evening in Dubai, with a 6-4 6-2 win over surprise finalist and world number Virginie Razzano.

In the first set, Razzano was out-hitting Venus in baseline rallies. This is no shock, however. Over the past 12 months or so, Venus has cleaned up her ground-game to a certain extent. She realised that her serve alone would be enough to beat hapless mid-ranked players time and time again, and that her rudimentary technique meant that she was always going to have off days with boatloads of errors at random stages in matches, so there was no need to take unnecessary risks in such matches. Gone are the days so, when she lost matches with an 80+ unforced error count, however, it leaves her more than vulnerable against practically any decent power player when her serve isin't working.

At the Season Ending Championships in Doha last year, it seemed Venus had struck the perfect balance between being aggressive and keeping a reasonable amount of safety built into her game. Then at the Australian Open this year, she was utterly incapable of hitting out-right winners from the baseline against Suarez Navarro, who for most of the match dictated proceedings from the baseline in their second round match and duly went on to win.

The casual tennis fan would still think Venus has arguably the biggest groundstrokes in the game. This is something of a misconception however. Having the biggest serve in the game along with a kamikaze style return-of-serve goes some way in hiding this, but Venus no longer looks to completely overpower her opponents from the baseline in rallies. Now she looks to out-manoeuvre and move the ball around to get her opponent out of position so she can work her way into the net and finish the point off from there. No longer is it the case that she can blast winners from the baseline at ease. She works alot harder from the back of the court than she ever did at her peak.

Venus' serve in the first set of the final against Razzano was on form. Razzano failed to take the three break points which she had at 2-2, and Venus made the decisive breakthrough in the set at 5-4 on Razzano's serve.

Venus raced out to a 5-0 lead in the second set, but the match was still closer than the score suggested. At 2-0 in the 2nd set, Razzano threw away the double break to Venus, with a couple of loose double faults. Razzano's second serve has little margin built into it, and is usually almost as big as her first serve. It's surprising therefore, that she doesn't hit more double faults than she normally does. Venus' serve went off the boil at the end of the 2nd set, but by that time it was already much too late and Venus closed out the match 6-4 6-2. Venus was definately much more aggressive from the baseline in the second set, and wasn't pushed around the court nearly as much as in the first set.

Venus' victories throughout the week included a straight sets win over world number four, Elena Dementieva and on Friday evening against her younger sister and world number one, Serena Williams 7-6(3) in the third set.

Razzano plays a very high risk game. She hits flat and low over the net with little margin for error built into her game. She is prone to having wildly fluctuating form throughout the year, so it wouldn't be surprising if she completely disappeared off the main radar for a couple of months after this week. With wins over Dinara Safina and Vera Zvonareva however, it shows she's a threat to any top player when in-form.

The final two games of the match.