PARIS - Venus Williams peered through the rain drops at the Day-Glo yellow letters and numbers dotting the black scoreboard.
First came an unwanted reminder: She was losing her French Open quarterfinal. Then, like an airport's schedule board, the digits flipped, revealing more bad news: Her sister Serena, seeded second, was gone already, beaten 6-3, 2-6, 6-3 by Jennifer Capriati across the grounds on center court.
Not much later, No. 4 Venus swatted a soggy, clay-caked ball wide for the last of 43 unforced errors, allowing Anastasia Myskina of Russia to wrap up a 6-3, 6-4 upset.
This anyone-can-beat-anyone French Open simply keeps producing surprises. Never before had the Williams sisters been eliminated in the same round at a tournament; it happened in a span of 28 minutes yesterday.
We're going to pack our bags and leave
said Venus, whose 19-match winning streak ended. There's nothing left for us here anymore. We're going home.
Clearly, the injuries that forced the siblings off the tour for the last half of 2003 and parts of this year hampered them -in their preparation, in their performance and in another vital way.
They've let slip the intimidation factor they built by being ranked Nos. 1-2, meeting in Slam final after Slam final, and divvying up eight of 11 major titles from Wimbledon in 2000 through the Australian Open in 2003.
And, as their mother pointed out, with each miscue (Serena had 45 unforced errors to Capriati's 24), the siblings' self-belief can wane.
When you start making a lot of errors you make opponents feel that 'OK
OK
I've got a chance now
' and their confidence goes up
Oracene Price said after shuffling between show courts to catch parts of each daughter's match. With my girls
when they do what they do
they can lose their confidence
too. It goes both ways.
Their body language was anything but positive yesterday. In her third game, Serena spiked her racket after getting broken by shanking a swinging volley 5 feet long. Venus bent over and let out a yelp after putting a backhand return into the net to waste one of three break points in her last game.
Now
of course
