TheSportsCampus

Serena Williams ended an 8-year wait to claim her second year-end WTA Tour title beating elder sister Venus 6-2, 7-6 (4) in a largely disappointing Sony Ericsson Championships final at Doha, Qatar.

The younger Williams, who will be restored to the top of the world rankings on Monday, came into the match with a 12-10 record against her elder sister, having beaten her thrice this year, including earlier in the week.

With both players sporting heavy bandages on their legs - Venus a knee brace and Serena a bandaged thigh - the start of the match hardly looked pretty. The usually athletic and highly motivated sisters looked sluggish in the early exchanges, with Serena struggling to change direc tion and Venus unable to retrieve as many balls as she usually does.

Serena came out firing, keeping the points short and going for her shots right from the start. It paid rich dividends as she picked up an early break in the third game of the match. Once ahead, Serena gave Venus no chance to claw her way back into the set, instead picked up a second break in the seventh game to pull ahead 5-2. She served out the following game to love to wrap up the opening set 6-2 in just 30 minutes flat.

The first set stats made miserable reading for Venus. She had won just 4 points on Serena's serve in the entire set, and had not surprisingly earned no break points. 10 unforced errors and a poor first serve percentage of 48% did Venus no favours either.

To her credit Venus tried to make a fist of it in the second set, hanging on to her own serve at the very least. Serena took a few games to deuce, but was unable to earn any break opportunities on Venus' serve in the entire set. However, if you think Venus did well, it was Serena's numbers that looked spectacular. In 6 service games she dropped just 2 points, leaving Venus with little hope as the set headed into a deciding tiebreak.

Serena raced to a 5-1 lead in the breaker on the back of a double mini-break, and though Venus clawed her way back to 5-4, Serena won the next two points on her own serve to close out the match with ease.

While the match was hardly the best tennis you will ever see, credit needs to be given to Serena for putting on a serving clinic for the fans today, and for both women, especially Venus for having come through such a gruelling event. Venus spent more than 11 hours on court between Tuesday and Sunday, with just a day's break in between.

Final Score:

(2) Serena Williams (USA) d. (7) Venus Williams (USA) 62 76(4)

File Photograph Copyright: Constantini (Italian Open)