Serena and Venus Williams have always been a force in Olympic doubles. By comparison, Safarova and Strycova recorded 26 winners.
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Olympics: Williams sisters suffer first Games doubles loss was posted in Sports of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 08, 2016 and was last updated on August 08, 2016.
Serena and Venus previously had a 15-0 at the Olympics, winning the Gold medal for women’s doubles tennis in 2000, 2008 and 2012.
Neither of the unseeded Czech pair had previously won an Olympic doubles match, also losing their only previous outing together in a Fed Cup match a year ago.
As Strycova and Safarova pulled away, the Rio crowd got behind them, chanting for the Czechs and even booing down an attempted chant of “U-S-A”.
Serena Williams said that their game suck and it showed.
Third seed Nadal was pumped up for his return and easily overpowered world number 43 Federico Delbonis of Argentina 6-2 6-1 in the first round but the 14-time grand slam victor admitted he was not at his best.
The Czechs, meanwhile, are unseeded.
While that match was played in the main stadium, action was delayed because of strong winds for about 2 hours on the eight smaller Olympic courts. Strycova was a late replacement for Karolina Pliskova, who withdrew from the tournament.
The unranked Czech team consisted of Lucie Safarova and Barbora Strycova, both ranked in the top 30 for singles play.
“She’s used to not feeling 100 percent with her Sjongren’s, and I think that’s why we saw her compete and fight to the end”, Fernandez said.
She said: “It was really intense”.
“I don’t know why”.
The fans couldn’t seem to settle on which woman they wanted to win. We had nothing to lose.
“Delpo was the better player and he deserved to win”.
Serena won earlier in the day in her singles match, but Venus was served a devastating loss the day before to Kirsten Flipkens.
Instead, U.S. women’s tennis coach Mary Joe Fernandez did, saying that Williams was sick before arriving in Brazil. She was also dehydrated and has an upset stomach after Saturday’s match where she lost. “United States of America!” chant late in the third set, others responded by booing (Kerry had left by then).
Then to add to Venus’ woes, she was sent packing from the Rio Games tournament play in the first round on Saturday. “I was not crossing the way I need to cross”.
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“The conditions definitely didn’t make it easy”, said Williams, the London 2012 Olympic champion and victor of 22 Grand Slams. “She was hitting fantastic winners, returns”.
