Williams and Martinez advance to the final

By Etienne Stekelenburg
April 18 2004

American Venus Williams meets Conchita Martinez of Spain in the Family Circle Cup final. Williams got rid of Croatian Jelena Kostanic with ease and Martinez had a row with Swiss Patty Schnyder in the semifinals in Charleston, USA.

Venus Williams is hoping to celebrate her 30th career title in the final against claycourt specialist Conchita Martinez. Williams had few problems dealing with Kostanic in winning the semifinal in two straight sets.

In the first set Kostanic was putting up a lot of resistance but Williams found all it took to overcome a first set loss. Playing against a plucky left hander like Kostanic Williams had won on experience 6-4 6-1.

The match between veteran Conchita Martinez and Patty Schnyder was a different ballgame altogether. The match ended up in a row between the two experienced players when Schnyder refused to shake Martinez’s hand after she had won.

When both players approached the net with hands outstretched for the post match handshake Schnyder pulled her hand away. The crowd rewarding this behavior with a chorus of boos and Martinez complaining with the umpire asking;” Did you see that?” The umpire told Martinez that he would report it.

“ I just wanted to look at her, I just wanted to stare into her eyes and say what I wanted to say to her,” Patty Schnyder said. Martinez was getting on Schnyder’s nerves with her routine of pace killing slice shots and moonballs. She also has the habit of asking the same ball after she had scored a point on serve. The balls have to come from the opposite of the court and it takes time before the next serve.

Twice the 26-year-old Swiss pocketed the winning ball to keep it from coming back in play. She also orbited one winning ball into the upper deck of the arena to keep it away from Martinez.

“She does it to everybody and I don’t think she needs it because she has a great game, “ Schnyder said. “ …. I mean, she is showing no respect to the ball person. She is walking around between first and second serve, letting everybody wait. I don’t think it’s the way you should behave.” Obviously Schnyder found it was about time to say something about Martinez’ peculiar serving habits.

Martinez explained she is doing everything within the time limit and that she is using everything to get focused for her next point. “ I didn’t do anything to try to bother her. And yeah, she did some things that are quite surprising to me. I don’t quite understand that,” she added.

Patty Schnyder committed 47 unforced errors against Martinez but admitted that it was hard for her to focus on the game. The Swiss could not keep her cool and started to complain at 2-2 in the first set, a game that just would not seem to end going to deuce for six times. Fed up with Martinez’s serve routine handling the balls and waiting for the balls to return, Schnyder told chair umpire Steve Ullrich that it was ‘so unfair’. Than Schnyder picked up the next ball to put it into her pocket so that Martinez could not serve with that ball again.

“The umpire should be more dominant, I think he should say something a little bit,” Schnyder said about the umpire’s reaction to Martinez’s ball routine.

After Schnyder missed a drop shot later in the game she hits the ball into the upper deck to keep the ball away from Martinez. The Swiss also yelled, “ I want that ball’ before a ball boy could return the winning ball to Martinez and again she slipped the ball under her skirt. The fires really started when the Swiss riffled a close range shot at the Spanish player but the ball slammed into the tape. Martinez yelled and pumped her fist at Schnyder. When Martinez prepared for her next serve Schnyder started to poke fun and imitates Martinez’s gait. Martinez prevailed 6-4 6-3.

All leading up to the event of the unanswered post match handshake. An event that could continue next week when Spain meets Switzerland in their Fed Cup first round match.