Yesterday i.e. the 17^th of June was the birthday of Venus Williams. She has become 34 years of age, one of the oldest players on the tour now. She had started her journey in professional tennis about 20 years back i.e. in 1994 and since then, she has been an influential figure in the female’s game. She has achieved a lot during her career so far. Winning Grand Slam singles title, winning Grand Slam doubles title, becoming the no. 1 player in the world, she has done almost everything that a professional player dreams of while starting his/her career.

Venus has not only been a strong personality on the court, she has been the same off the court as well. She suffered a dangerous illness a while back which threatened to finish her career. It was a unique sort of illness and most of the players perhaps would not have been able to fight with it, but, Venus showed what a fighter she was. She had that will to put her career back on track and thus, she struggled hard against that illness and ended up getting rid of it.

Yes, people can say that since making her comeback, Venus doesn’t look the same player that she once was and it’s true to some extent, but, making a comeback after getting rid of such dangerous illness is a huge achievement in itself. Even after achieving so much in the game, the desire that Venus showed to come back, that’s worth a salute.

Venus is also responsible for shaping the career of her younger sister Serena Williams. She used to help her a lot during the starting days of her career and today Serena is a legend.

So, it’s safe to say that Venus is someone whom the youngsters can idolize both on and off the court. Her ability, her character, her passion and her temperament, everything is admirable.

Mardy Fish’s countrywoman, Sloane Stephens, has been defeated by Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark in the second round of the AEGON International Tennis Tournament which is going on in Eastbourne at the moment. It was an easy win for Wozniacki. She took only about an hour to crush her opponent who was comparatively very young and inexperienced. The Danish woman won both the sets by the same margin of 6-3.

The two players came into the match with different sort of attitude. While, Wozniacki was looking calm, composed and relaxed, Stephens seemed to be trying too hard. She was trying to win points quickly and was over aggressive in order to do so. That resulted in her committing a number of unforced errors in both the sets and she ended up handing the match to Wozniacki.

With this win, Wozniacki remained undefeated against Stephens. She has now played 5 matches against the American youngster in total and has won all of them.

In the opening set, both the players held their serve in the first 3 games and the scores were 2-1. In the 4^th game, the first breakthrough for Wozniacki came and after that, she made sure that she didn’t let Stephens break her back. She won her next three service games and sealed the set.

Having had the first set in her bag, Wozniacki looked much more confident in the second set and with the help of a serve break pretty early, she got ahead by 2-0. With consecutive serve holds after that, the Danish player extended her lead to 5-3 and then, she broke Stephens again in the 9^th game to get the match done and dusted.

It’s been the first time in the last couple of months that Wozniacki has got two wins successively. Her form before this tournament was pathetic.