May 10, 2004 Win of the Week: Venus Overcomes Sprem's Challenge Venus Williams overcomes injury and fearless Karolina Sprem for three-set comeback victory in Berlin semifinals. BERLIN - Venus Williams walked onto centre court for her semifinal match at the German Open in Berlin on Saturday with one thing in mind - to extend her 14-match winning streak to 15 and earn a spot in the finals for the third tournament in a row. Extremely confident on the clay this year and arguably the hottest player on Tour at the moment, little did she know of the challenge that her young opponent, Croatian teenager Karolina Sprem, was about to put up. Never having reached a semifinal of a Tier I event, the 19-year-old from Varazdin, Croatia, was having the tournament of her life. She was coming off a solid straight sets quarterfinal win over Australian Open semifinalist Fabiola Zuluaga, who incidentally had taken a set off of Venus the previous week at Charleston. Against Williams, Sprem had nothing to lose, and it showed. Sprem came out of the blocks unrelentingly controlling the rallies and going for every opportunity to finish the point that came her way. She won the first four games of the match, and held on to take the set 62. Williams buckled down in the second set, cutting down her unforced errors and beginning to take control of the rallies. Sprem seemed to lose focus on her aggressive tactics and before long the match was even, Williams taking the set 63. However, knowing that her success in the match came from her attacking baseline game, Sprem began the third set just as she had left off in the first set, hitting an array of offensive groundstrokes, many of them clean winners, and breaking the Williams serve to take a 3-0 final set lead. "I think she just came out there swinging," said Williams. "She had nothing to lose out there. She started to hit winners, she was hitting and doing well." Somehow, Williams held on to her nerves, overcame an injury to her ankle, and summoned enough strength to match Sprem's powerful offense, eventually wearing down the fatigued youngster and grinding out a 64 final set comeback win. Though acknowledging that she was indeed fading, Sprem was gracious in defeat. "At 3-0 I felt my legs start to get tired," Sprem said. "It was a great experience for me because Venus is definitely one of the best players out there." Perhaps the most inspiring aspect of the win for Williams was that she was able to maintain self-belief throughout, even at the most seemingly desperate of times, down in the third set and struggling with her ankle. With Sprem reaping the benefits of an aggressive style, highlighted by twice the number of winners as Williams throughout the match, the task was even more difficult. "I wasn't worried," said Williams. "I was still certain of myself. I was playing better, I was moving better. I was still very confident. I wasn't stressed." Asked if the reason that the test was so difficult was because she hadn't seen her play before, Williams said no. "These days this really doesn't mean anything," Williams said. "You have to be ready. I was anticipating that she will come out and play like that... she didn't make any mistakes at the beginning, but I did and could not afford to." -- ---禅心已作沾泥絮，莫向春风舞鹧鸪--- --

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