Chicago is one of the last stops before the S Open next week. One player who is an example in terms of longevity in tennis is Venus Williams. She was a wild card entry into the first round draw at the Chicago Open and faced Taiwan's Su Wei Hsieh. She lost with a head held high just watch 1-0(40-40 and Adv Venus).Venus has always had a great serve here and it dug her out of the hole she was in at deuce. To be honest Venus was probably the better player in the first five games of the match, Her ground strokes were excellent, she however made the crucial error of not converting the first break point of the match at 2-2(30-40). The unforced errors which have dogged Venus these couple of years letting her down again. Hsieh is known for being a great doubles player as such she had the better of Venus from that part of the court. Watch the great reflexes on the net as she saved another break point at 2-2(adv Williams). An interesting aspect of Hsieh's play is the way she catches the ball with a slight slice motion, be it on the forehand or backhand. That shot won her the break of serve in the sixth game of the first albeit with the net cord help. It is neither a drop shot or a ground stroke but its effective. Hsieh won the first set 6-2.

Second set began much like the way the first set ended, Venus missing routine shots and she duly went a break down in her first service game. Venus hasn't had enough consecutive runs of victories this year to build her confidence. It showed in this match with the errors. One of the bright spots for her was her serve, she had the most number of aces of the two, 5 as opposed to zero for Su. She rolled back the years with her best game of the match at 3-1 to get the break back. Then it was back to default position Venus the very next game, a weak service game punctuated by hair pulling errors. Hsieh wasn't all that better than Venus but the American was her own worst enemy in this match. Venus defeated Venus. Game went on serve to the end, Hsieh winning it 6-3.