April 18, 2004 Williams Ends Title Drought, Wins Family Circle Cup CHARLESTON, S.C. - Venus Williams ended a 14-month title drought on Sunday by winning the Family Circle Cup in Charleston. Williams defeated two-time champion Conchita Martinez, 26 62 61, to win her 30th career title in her first final since last year's Wimbledon loss to sister Serena Williams. "I really just had a wonderful tournament and I'm so excited," Williams said. "It's such a huge event and such great players, and Conchita's been in this final so many times and won it a couple times, and you know that she's an expert at what she does, so there are a lot of factors in there that make me feel good." Williams advanced past the quarterfinals this week for the first time this year, but early in her championship match with Martinez, it didn't look like she's end her title dry spell. Martinez soared through the first set, picking up an early 2-0 lead and grabbing another break at 4-2 before gaining a one set lead. The first set I wasn't moving forward enough," said Williams of dropping the first set. "I just really was making too many mistakes, and that second set from the first point I wanted to turn it around, and I really just started moving in and coming to the net. And actually when I was coming in, I felt really good up there, so I didn't stop. I just kept it going." Things quickly turned around for the No.4 seed after Williams held serve to open the second set and followed by getting her first break of the match to go up 2-0. Williams again held serve and held a couple of break points to go up another but Martinez was able to fight off her efforts to stay down only one break. At 5-2, Williams evened the match at two sets apiece when Martinez's forehand sailed into the net on the second of three break point opportunities. The momentum was clearly in Williams' corner at the start of the third set, as the American quickly got a break on Martinez's first service game to go up 2-0. She got a second break on Martinez's next service game and held serve to go up 5-0. Martinez avoided a third set shutout with a strong service performance to get on the board for 5-1, but Williams' serve prove too strong to overcome. Before Sunday's match, Williams and Martinez had never met on clay and hadn't played against one another since the quarterfinals on hard court in San Diego all the way in 2000 with the American winning the match, 63 60. Their only other prior meeting came in 1999 with Williams winning a three-set match on carpet in the Chase Championships. With her first title of the year, Williams became only the 13th player in the Open Era to win 30 career titles and tied Tracy Austin for 11th place on the Career Titles list. Martinez is 10th on that list with 32 career titles. Williams also became only the third player in the last 10 years to win a Tier I event in her debut appearance. The only players to achieve this feat in the last 10 years are Justine Henin-Hardenne at last year’s Family Circle Cup and Martina Hingis at 1998 Indian Wells. Martinez, who became the seventh player to record 700 career victories in the Open Era earlier in the week, needs one more victory to tie Evonne Goolagong Cawley for sixth place on the Career Singles Match Wins list with 704. "I think I stopped doing whatever I was doing in the first set," said Martinez on her loss to Williams. "She obviously started playing a little better, not making many mistakes, but I definitely stopped doing what I needed to do. "She tried and come to the net a little bit more, and that worked for her. That's sort of tough to play against her. The ball comes different. I wasn't used to that, so I didn't really get my rhythm during the whole match." Williams wasn't the only player looking to snap a long title drought. Martinez was hoping to end a 48-month dry spell, having not one a itle on Tour since Berlin in 2000, also a Tier I event. Martinez, who won back-to-back Charleston titles in 1994 and 1995, has had a very successful time at the South Carolina event. Along with her two titles and finals appearance this year, Martinez has reached at least the semifinals in eight of her 13 appearances. Her 36 wins at the event tie her with Martina Navratilova for second place on the all-time Family Circle Cup singles match wins list, trailing only Chris Evert (50). Top doubles team of Virginia Ruano Pascual and Paola Suarez won their 23rd title as a team and third of the year with a 64 61 victory against No.2 seeds Martina Navratilova and Lisa Raymond. The duo won the Charleston title for the third time in four finals appearances, matching the titles they won in 2000 and 2003. After beginning the year 16-1, Ruano Pascual and Suarez fell to Nadia Petrova and Meghann Shaughnessy in the quarterfinals at Miami and again the following week at Amelia Island. Now, they have improved to 21-3 and are the only team on the Tour this year to win three titles. -- ---禪心已作沾泥絮，莫向春風舞鷓鴣--- --

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