Venus vociferous on women's tennis

Venus pumped Venus Williams has hit back at any suggestion that women’s tennis is in turmoil following her swift defeat of Dinara Safina in their semi-final. The five-time title-holder denied a journalist's claim that her 6-1, 6-0 defeat of the world No.1 in 51 minutes could be seen as “embarrassing” for the women’s game. “Are you trying to be down on women’s tennis,” the American demanded at her post-match press conference after it was pointed out that the older Williams sister simply destroyed the Russian. “You’re trying to be down, basically,” she snapped. “I don’t deal with down at all. I’m just making sure you’re not trying to be down because I respect Dinara Safina immensely and I think you should too.” When the journalist now firmly in Williams’ line of fire suggested: “When you see the No.1 losing 6-1, 6-0, it doesn’t look great for women’s tennis does it?”, the five-time Wimbledon champion was quick to respond: “I think women’s tennis is fantastic.” In fact, the 29-year-old said that instead of being worried about what it represented, she rather “liked the score” at the end of her match. “I think the score just showed my level of play. I was just dictating on every point. And I think when she has some opportunities to make some plays it was hard because there was a lot of pressure on her. " And she was happier to agree with another journalist’s assertion that today’s result meant that she had “beaten the computer” – the one which sets the world rankings based on points accumulated at tournaments all year round rather than considering the level of performance on the biggest stages. She said: “I’m not the No.1 seed. I shouldn’t be expected, I guess, to win this match. Obviously my record on grass, I think, and my experience helped me a lot today.” But she refused to go one step further and say whether the rankings system should be changed. “It’s too early to say. We have to go on and see how that works this whole year, because the ranking system is new. It’s too early to say right now.”