Venus Williams sends Caroline Wozniacki packing

DUBAI: Measures are invaluable in sport. Fans look up to it, sports writers rely on it and athletes reach for it. That all too familiar story of citius, altius, fortius.
Sometimes, however, ranking and results don't quite capture it, not down to the details and decimals. For instance, how much better or rather how close is tennis' comeback gal, the five-time Wimbledon champion, 33-year-old Venus Williams to the form that took her to the top of women's tennis?
"She's getting better, improving every day," world no.1 Serena Williams, chipped in on her older sibling."But," she underlined, rolling her heavily kohled eyes, "Venus is nowhere near her best. Nowhere."
On a windy evening at the Dubai Duty Free tennis championships the 6 ft 2' American, no-fuss tennis dress and hair pulled back in a knot you'd expect on a 30-something headed to a supermarket, pulverised the former no. 1 Caroline Wozniacki, winning 6-3, 6-2 in the semifinals.
Venus, always looking to attack, but far from consistent with her play, came through easily. Wozniacki, who played from so far behind the baseline she might as well have stayed back in Denmark, didn't quite have the shots to trouble Venus.
In the first set, she went ahead 2-0 and then 5-2, after Wozniacki appeared ready to challenge in the fourth game when she broke her opponent, 10 years her senior, at love.
She broke again in the eighth game, at love, when Venus was serving for the set, but the American hit right back, closing out on her second set point.
The second set was less challenging as Wozniacki in slip-sliding mode had little to offer against a player, who has always shown scant respect for the soft stuff.
The Dane said the weight of Venus' strike was as tough as it had always been.