Venus Williams In Fine Form At Wimbledon

4 months ago 26th Jun 10:16

Despite some heavy taping to her left leg Venus Williams breezed through her second round match with a comprehensive 6-3 6-2 victory over Kateryna Bondarenko.

The defending champion, who is going for her fifth Wimbledon title at SW19 this year, showed no signs of injury from the strapped knee winning in just over an hour.

It was her powerful ground strokes that took apart Bondarenko's game as she found herself stuck behind the baseline as the American claimed two breaks to win the opening set.

And she faced little opposition in the second as she bagged her sixteenth consecutive win at Wimbledon and look s set to go deep into the tournament, if not make it to the final.

It was also a better performance from world number one Dinara Safina, who has not been talked about at the championships so far, looking far more comfortable on the grass than she did in her opening match.

She saw off Rossana De Los Rios 6-3 7-5 to make it to the third round. But there was not good news to Kirsten Flipkens.

Flipkens is a player ranked four places below Baltacha and someone she has beaten on the two occasions that they have met, so it was very much a winnable match for the Briton.

After a competitive first set, which saw Baltacha had a early break to lead 3-1. But the occasions got to her and her serve let her down at 5-6 to gift Flipkens the first set.

After that Baltcha's game fell apart and her confidence ebbed away, despite the crowd trying to lift the twenty five year old.

Baltacha couldn't hold onto her serve and Flipkens had a 5-0 love lead and there was no way back for the British player. Flipkens wrapped up the victory 7-5 6-1.

There were more impressive wins for Svetlana Kuznetsova, who saw off Pauline Parmentier 6-1 6-3, and Jelena Jankovic beat Iveta Benesova 6-2 6-4.

There were also wins for Ana Ivanovic, Carla Suarez Navarro, Caroline Wozniacki, Amelie Mauresmo and Sam Stosur.