Earlier on Sunday, Serena crushed Australia’s Daria Gavrilova 6-3 6-2 in her first round singles match, a day after Venus was eliminated by Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens.
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Venus Williams’ hopes of winning another Olympic gold medal now rest in the women’s doubles after the veteran tennis star lost her opening singles match at the Rio Games on Saturday.
Williams and her younger sister Serena have won three golds in doubles – at the 2000, 2008 and 2012 Olympics.
The American duo was the No. 1 seed in Rio after their 14th Grand Slam championship at Wimbledon just over a month ago.
“I spent three days in an airport so that was not the best preparation”.
“We played awful, and it showed in the results”, Serena told AP.
“I was a little nervous about that”, Williams said of her reaction to hearing of the gusty conditions, which she called “very intense”.
Japan’s men had a strong day, going 3-0: Taro Daniel defeated Sock 6-4, 6-4; Yuichi Sugita edged Baker 5-7, 7-5, 6-4; and fourth-seeded Kei Nishikori won a point even though his racket flew out of his hand on a serve during a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Spain’s Albert Ramos-Vinolas. The 36-year-old Venus, meanwhile, now has two first-round exits at the Rio Olympics, because she was beaten in singles on Saturday night.
But against Flipkens, who was making her Olympic debut, Williams failed to find the right measure on most of her strokes and wound up with 13 fewer winners.
It’s the same experience the Campbell sisters will likely have to endure when they square off in the 50m and 100m freestyle finals – barring a disaster – in Rio De Janeiro later in the week. Knowing Venus, she will be out there, no matter how bad she’s feeling’.
On Saturday night, Venus’ availability for doubles was put in doubt by USA women’s tennis coach Mary Joe Fernandez, who said the four-time gold medalist and seven-time Grand Slam champion had cramping, dehydration and an upset stomach following a first-round loss in singles. It was their first-ever Olympic doubles loss.
“Here it’s very hard to play because it’s fairly open, there is constantly some kind of wind”, said Croatia’s Marin Cilic, who beat Bulgaria’s Grigor Dimitrov 6-1 6-4.
The Williams sisters appeared to be getting back into the match in the second set, which was even at four-all.
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Venus consolidated her break before Flipkens got onto the scoreboard with a rather complicated hold. Williams fired down an ace and then chased down a Gavrilova drop shot to hit a victor to go up 5-2.
