By Carl Steward, San Jose Mercury News –
STANFORD, Calif. — In the end, the exhausting 5,300-mile trip from London to Palo Alto proved to be well worth the extra effort for Serena Williams.
Williams not only defended her Bank of the West Classic title Sunday at Stanford’s Taube Family Tennis Center with a 7-5, 6-3 victory over fellow American Coco Vandeweghe, but she also received a stern championship match that should help sustain her momentum toward her grander goals this summer.
(PHOTO: Serena Williams returns the ball in the first set of her finals match against Coco Vandeweghe for the Bank of the West Classic tennis tournament at Taube Family Tennis Stadium at Stanford University in Stanford, California, on Sunday, July 15, 2012.)
At 30, a healthy Williams understands she might be riding the last great wave of an illustrious career that now totals 43 singles titles — tied with her sister Venus — with 14 of those being Grand Slam triumphs. Hence, after winning Wimbledon just one week ago, she wanted to make the trip to the West Coast to keep her winning edge.
Winning the Bank of the West might seem like a small thing in the big picture, but it could prove pivotal as Williams prepares for the Olympics, where she will be gunning for a third gold medal, and then the U.S. Open, where she is looking for her fourth title but first since 2008.
“I definitely wanted to sustain my momentum, get better and build on what I did at Wimbledon,” she said. “I didn’t play my best tennis today, but I definitely survived, and I think mentally I was there. That really helped me out a lot. But I’m glad to be done with it, and to have actually won.”
If nothing else, Vandeweghe made her work for it. After barely having to exert herself in her tournament wins against Nicole Gibbs, Chanelle Scheepers and Sorana Cirstea, Williams got all she could handle from 20-year-old lucky loser Vandeweghe, who came into the tournament ranked No. 120 in the world.
The heavy underdog from Rancho San Fe, the granddaughter of former NBA player Ernie Vandeweghe and the niece of former NBA standout Kiki Vandeweghe, matched Williams power shot for power shot. Early on, it appeared she might pull off a monumental upset in her first WTA final when she broke Williams twice for a 5-3 lead after dropping the first two games.
With Vandeweghe leading 5-4 and serving for the first set, Williams had to summon her “A” game to pull out a 16-point game in which she faced set point and also had five break points pushed back to deuce by her feisty opponent.
Finally, after the fifth deuce, Williams hit a forehand winner on Vandeweghe’s far less lethal second serve, then won the game when Vandeweghe double-faulted. It was the breakthrough she knew she needed.
“I just really wanted to win that game,” Williams said. “I was up in that game, had a bunch of break points, and then she ended up having set point. I just said, ‘Serena, whatever you do, definitely just do what you have to do to pull this out.’”‰”
Vandeweghe said that long, tough game was unquestionably the turning point.
“Who knows if I win that first set what happens?” she said.
After holding serve to go up 6-5, Williams then avoided a tiebreaker by rallying from 15-40 to break Vandeweghe again and take the hard-fought set.
Vandeweghe tried to pull it back together it in the second set, but with the players on serve and Williams leading 2-1, Williams broke again at love to go up 3-1, and the end was near. Vandeweghe made a costly error when she stopped playing a point during that game and challenged a line call that went against her. Down love-30, she then hit long on a rally and finally double-faulted.
Vandeweghe wasn’t broken again, but Williams wasn’t about to let her back in the match, easily serving out three more games in the second set to close it out.
Afterward, Serena praised her opponent for putting up a good fight.
“Coco played so well,” she said. “Her serve is really strong, but she was doing everything well out there. Her strokes are beautiful.”
And powerful. With her performance, Vandeweghe showed there might be hope for American women’s tennis once the Williams sisters decide to call it a career. Sunday’s match was the first all-American WTA final since 2009 and the first on U.S. soil since 2004.
“Serena’s a great player, an all-time great, and to be able to push someone like that in both sets and being able to serve for the first is an accomplishment in itself for a young player like myself who grew up watching her play,” Vandeweghe said. “Even though I didn’t win, I definitely hope to capitalize on how I performed against her.”
Statistically, the match was pretty much even. Williams served nine aces but had six double faults. Vandeweghe had six aces — including one at a tournament-best 121 mph — and five double faults. The match lasted 1 hour, 27 minutes.
In the doubles final, Marina Erkovic of New Zealand and Heather Watson of Great Britain teamed to beat American Vania King and Australia’s Jarmila Gajdosova 7-5, 7-6 (7).
