FanHouse Venus Williams

REGGIO CALABRIA, Italy (AP) -- Alexa Glatch and Melanie Oudin lost in straight sets Saturday to give Italy a 2-0 lead over the United States in the Fed Cup final.

Glatch lost to Flavia Pennetta 6-3, 6-1, and Francesca Schiavone rallied after a two-hour rain delay to defeat Oudin 7-6 (2), 6-2 on the outdoor red clay court at the Rocco Polimeni club.

"She came out and started playing a lot better and wasn't missing anything when she came back out," Oudin said. "She changed her game a little bit. I did the best I could."

Reverse singles and doubles were scheduled for Sunday in the best-of-five series.

DOHA, Qatar (AP) -- Serena Williams said she didn't arrive at the Sony Ericsson Championships expecting to win.

Plenty of other people did that for her.

Williams bested big sister Venus again Sunday, winning 6-2, 7-6 (4) in the season-ending tournament for her third victory of the season. Williams also won Wimbledon and the Australian Open, and clinched the year-end No. ranking earlier in the week.

"It feels great," said Serena, who also won the WTA Tour's season-ending event in 2001. "I totally didn't expect to come here and win."

DOHA, Qatar (AP) -- The Williams sisters will end their season with another title matchup.

Venus Williams defeated Jelena Jankovic 5-7, 6-3, 6-4 Saturday in one semifinal at the Sony Ericsson Championships. Serena Williams won the other when Caroline Wozniacki quit because of an abdominal injury while trailing 6-4, 0-1.

Serena, who secured the year-end No. 1 ranking this week, is returning to the final of the WTA Tour's season-ending championships for the first time since 2004. She was knocked out in the group stage the last two years, but was the only player to go undefeated through the round-robin rounds this time.

DOHA, Qatar (AP) -- Serena Williams became the first player to clinch a spot in the semifinals of the WTA Sony Ericsson Championships on Thursday, defeating Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-4 for her third straight win in the tournament's round-robin group phase.

Her sister Venus, the defending champion, stayed alive by beating Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-4 for her first win in three matches. She needs Kuznetsova to beat Dementieva on Friday to have a chance of advancing to the semifinals.

Earlier, Caroline Wozniacki overcame severe leg cramps and a tenacious Vera Zvonareva to win 6-0, 6-7 (3), 6-4.

She threatened a player, didn't try most of the year, famously threatened a line judge and was thrown out of a match.

The other thing Serena Williams did in 2009 was this:

She won the year-end No. 1 ranking. It became official Wednesday in Doha, Qatar, at the WTA Championships when Dinara Safina, the current No. 1 Williams was trying to overcome, withdrew from the tournament with a bad back. It guaranteed that Williams would finish the year No. 1 for the first time since 2002.

Two more things: She deserves it.

And it's the best thing for tennis.

---

---

Serena and Venus Williams have plenty of experience playing against each other. But you wouldn't have been able to tell that by the way the two played when they faced off for the 22nd career time on Wednesday in the WTA Tour Championships in Doha.

It took Serena almost three hours and a full three sets (including a third set tiebreak) to top her older sister 5-7, 6-4, 7-6(4) in a somewhat sloppy match. They didn't play well at the same time until the last three games of the match, where the two finally seemed to put forth their best effort.

With Serena trailing 5-6 in the third, both players turned on the jets and provided the fans in Doha with a brief glimpse of what they were hoping to see throughout the match. Asked what changed for her late in the third, Serena said, "I just tried to relax. Whenever I relax, I play better." Seems simple enough.

The soon to be No. 1 women's tennis player in the world says she wants to play in the Fed Cup finals against Italy next month. But before she can commit, Serena Williams wants to be sure sure she is healthy enough.

Serena is holding off on making a decision until after the season-ending championships in Qatar.

"I definitely want to play again. I am just trying to get there," Williams said. "It's just really hard to see how my body is going to be after Doha, (Qatar) -- if I am going to be walking or if I am going to be in a wheelchair."

NEW YORK (AP) -- Not much for Serena Williams to get worked up about this time.

Two days after her profanity-laced exit from the U.S. Open singles semifinals, she returned with her sister, Venus, and rolled to an easy victory for their 10th Grand Slam doubles championship Monday.

It was a 6-2, 6-2 win over defending champions Cara Black and Liezel Huber and it couldn't have been more unlike the scene Saturday night, when Williams got called for a foot fault that triggered her outburst at a line judge. That resulted in a point penalty on match point against Kim Clijsters, and an ugly departure from the singles semifinal.

---

---

NEW YORK -- It's amazing how fast you get old in tennis. Not that it comes too soon, though there's that, too. But it comes in a hurry, out of nowhere.

In the real world, it comes gradually. On the tennis court, the tiniest of precision goes, and, snap, you are old.

And that brings me to what we saw from Venus Williams on Sunday, losing to Kim Clijsters in the oddest of matches, 6-0, 0-6, 6-4 in the fourth round of the U.S. Open.

Williams was a 29-year-old with a heavily supported, swollen left knee, struggling to move, missing some of the easiest volleys.

---

---

NEW YORK – So here is Venus Williams, with an aura that is just about as dazzling as her fuchsia dress. She has every right to be ornery, bummed, and short on answers. She has just meticulously unwrapped the god-awful thick contraption from her left knee, and now her skin itched with phantom crawlies, and as she went through the motion of sitting to standing, there was the unmistakable creak of bone-on-bone.

"It's been a pretty good day," she said cheerily, to a couple of young girls who were patiently waiting for the older Williams sister to sign their tennis balls. "Did you enjoy the match?"

Of course they did, they said through a spasm of giggles. As I observed this small snapshot of Venus' day from a few feet away, I couldn't help but think: So here is a mighty fine prototype of the modern female athlete.