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Zvonareva Yielded Half of Amount
First time in her career, Venus Williams of the U.S. won the season-ending Sony Ericsson Championships in Doha. The American defeated in the final battle the tournament’s sensation – Vera Zvonareva of Russia. In the men’s tennis, Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the opening match of the Masters Cups that began in Shanghai on Sunday.
Zvonareva said she had gone to Qatar without any particular hope for success. Nevertheless, she had tuned herself to play at the very limit of capacity from the very beginning. En route to the final, the lowest-ranked Zvonareva crushed compatriot Svetlana Kuznetsova, ex-number one Ana Ivanovic and current number one Jelena Jankovic. In another effort, she defeated Beijing champ Elena Dementieva in the semifinal.
The second finalist was Venus Williams, who, strange as it might seem had never won the season-ending event, although her brilliant career record sets forth seven Grand Slam titles. Venus progressed to the final after the epic win over her sister Serena and after she triumphed over Jelena Jankovic in the semifinal.
Perhaps because of the exhausting battle of Williams and Jankovic, it was the Russian that started better the final event. Zvonareva had the 5-3 advantage at her service and was leading 40-0 when Williams finally recovered to reach the tie-break. But Zvonareva was lucky with the net cord at the crucial moment and won the first set 7-6 (7-5).
It was quite different Williams in the second set, playing as if all her life had depended on the outcome. She stormed (6-0) through the second set and won the decider 6-2 to earn $1.34 million. Zvonareva got $715,000.
In the men’s tennis, Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko fought back to wear down and overwhelm in-form Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 6-7 (6-8) 6-4 7-6 (7-0) in the opening match of the Masters Cup Gold Group in Shanghai, while Novak Djokovic defeated Juan Martin del Potro 7-5 6-3.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Nov. 10, 2008
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