Venus rates Games over slam

Source: Agencies  |   2008-7-7  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

VENUS Williams would never swap one of her five beloved Wimbledon singles titles for a different grand slam trophy but she said yesterday that Olympic gold medals were an even bigger prize.

Venus, who beat her sister Serena 7-5, 6-4 on Saturday at the All England Club in London to claim her seventh grand slam title, said she was relishing the chance to add to her two Olympic golds (2000 singles and doubles with Serena) at August's Beijing Games.

"I love the Olympics. To add to my medals is just, it would be amazing. I know I've got to work for it," she told two invited reporters.

"It's probably bigger than a slam, I think so, definitely. And you know how much I love Wimbledon, it's bigger than Wimbledon."

Williams has never won the French or Australian Open singles titles but said they would not mean as much to her as Wimbledon's Venus Rosewater Dish.

"At the end of the day, people remember the Wimbledon, I mean the French Open and the Australian are unbelievable slams but they can get a little lost on the wayside," the 28-year-old American said.

"Wimbledon will never get lost."

She said her fifth Wimbledon title was important because it brought her closer to the achievements of players such as Martina Navratilova (nine) and Steffi Graf (seven).

"This one is obviously really historic for me because I'm getting closer to being in the company of other great players. That was really the whole deal of it for me this year," she said.

She and Serena collected the doubles title just hours after their singles encounter, beating Lisa Raymond of the US and Australian Samantha Stosur 6-2, 6-2, but Venus said her younger sister did not see that as making up for her earlier defeat.

"A loss is still a loss," she said. "But we really wanted the doubles title, it's huge, it's Wimbledon. Two years from now we'll see it was another notch on our grand slam belts."

Venus said she hoped to build on the victory and perhaps one day return to the No. 1 ranking

"I don't think I can change too much about my game," she said when asked what she needed to improve to become No. 1. "Hey, got to win matches, no secret on that one."

The doubles victory improved Venus and Serena to 7-0 in grand slam doubles finals, and gave them their third doubles title at the All England Club.

The Williams sisters have entered 34 tournaments as a team and won 11 titles.

Including the prize money awarded to the singles champion and runner-up, along with what they earned for the doubles championship, the Williams family netted more than US$2.5 million on Saturday.