HONG KONG – World number two Vera Zvonareva crushed five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams in straight sets in Hong Kong Thursday as some of the world’s top women prepared for the year’s first Grand Slam.
Zvonareva’s 6-4, 6-2 victory took Russia into a commanding 2-0 lead over the Americas at Hong Kong’s World Team Challenge and the 26-year-old looked in scintillating form ahead of the Australian Open starting on January 17.
“It’s an exciting moment for me. It’s the first match of the year and I’m really happy the way I started,” she said.
Zvonareva, who has 10 WTA career singles wins, was more vastly more consistent than the American in the semi-final clash in the season-opening exhibition. Williams, 30, struggled in the chilly 3,600-seater Victoria Park stadium, getting off to a shaky start in both sets when she dropped her first service game.
Earlier Zvonareva’s teammate Maria Kirilenko gave US teenager Melanie Oudin a lesson in tenacity and concentration, fighting her way from a set down to sneak a second set tie-breaker before taking the decider 6-0. The 23-year-old, who finished 2010 as the world number 20, was on the back foot for large swathes of the match but relied on her superior experience to put her 19-year-old opponent to the sword. Zvonareva, Kirilenko and Williams are in Hong Kong as part of their preparations for the
Australian Open, which starts on January 17.
