Black Tennis Pro's

The American doubles team of sisters Venus and Serena Williams returned to Wimbledon’s Centre Court to win the women’s doubles title on Saturday night.

Hours after Venus beat Serena in straight sets in the third all-Williams singles final at the All England Club, the sisters teamed up to beat fellow American Lisa Raymond and Australia’s Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-2.

The Williams sisters broke twice in each set to complete a double they last achieved in 2002, when Serena clinched the singles crown.

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With mixed emotions, defending Wimbledon title holder American Venus Williams expressed a very muted celebration after winning the second championship point against sister Serena Williams. Venus defeated Serena 7-5, 6-4.

The match was well contested, the ladies played as well as they could given the windy conditions and worn baseline grass. The worst part of the match was the noticeably silent crowd. I don't believe that I've EVER witnessed such silence before. It made it seem like something ominous was on its way. Perhaps for Serena, it was.

Serena began to look a bit dejected towards the end of the first set. By the middle of the second set, she was ready to kill her obviously uncooperative racquet. She managed to hold off on that act. Unfortunately though, she never really seemed to be able to find a way to successfully fend off big sister's title defense, thus her gloomy demeanor continued throughout the rest of the match.

Venus, on the other hand, was clearly seeking a win. She was focused, determined and very athletic in her pursuit of this win. She was all over the court throughout the match. It was wonderful to see. She even, once again, broke her own serve speed record, bumping it up to 129mph.

Fortunately for those of us who are Williams sisters fans, we had already won. The actual winner of the tournament would be more of a formality than a decision. While I'm over the moon to see Venus win her fifth Wimbledon title, I would have been just as happy to see Serena win.

During the trophy presentation Venus went immediately into big sister mode trying to ensure that Serena was okay.

"I can't believe that it's five, but when you're in the match against Serena Williams, five seems so far away from that first point. I mean, she played so awesome that it was really a task to beat her."

I loved when Venus acknowledged how difficult it was for all of her family to watch the two of them play one another, and followed with, "I'd like to think that they want me to win, but." The crowd got a nice laugh out of that one.

It was a great tournament, full of upsets and surprises. The 2008 Wimbledon Championships were thoroughly enjoyable.

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Ebony Magazine has published an article on the "coolest" brothas of all time. Here is the article, and here are a few of the cool ones:

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Get up early, grab some breakfast and coffee, your favorite snacks or whatever you partake of while being mesmerized at spectacular sporting events, fire up that CPU and join me!!

Black Tennis Pro's will be blogging live on Saturday as the superstar tennis sisters of all time take to the court in the Ladies Final of the Championships at Wimbledon to do battle with each other. It's going down folks!

Simply click the comments link to this post, come on in and speak up.

See ya' Saturday! (Time to follow.)

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It must be a woeful sight during the Ladies Doubles matches for any team to look across the net and see two of the most dangerous female tennis players in the world putting their heads together to plot the demise of your game.

It's not enough that they each hold Wimbledon titles, but it's overkill that they share 14 grand slam titles. I give credit to all of the ladies that meet these two on the court and take any games, let alone sets off of them. Especially when they are as focused as they are right now.


Venus and Serena are both now into the semifinals of the Ladies Singles and Ladies Doubles events. It has been a while since we've seen both of these ladies so energized and dedicated at the same time, and working their way towards the final(s) of a grand slam. Beautiful.

I'm lovin' it!

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As is true on the first day of each month, today Villager of Electronic Village is proud to share his Black Blog Rankings for the month of July. The rankings began in September of '07 with 75 Black blogs, and has grown to 1,269 Black blogs in July of '08.

This month Black Tennis Pro's ranks at No. 33. Thanks for the love Villager!

The top ten Black blogs for July are:

1. Pam's House Blend (credentialed to blog on the floor of the DNC - work it girl!)
2. Bossip.com
3. Nah Right
4. Concrete Loop
5. Oliver Willis
6. Young Black and Fabulous
   
7. Sandra Rose
8. Crunk and Disorderly
9. Jack and Jill Politics
10. The Angry Black Woman

To view the list in it's entirety, click here.

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For all of you unenlightened cats and kittens who don't know what's real, American Venus Williams was sure to clue some of you in yesterday after her 6-3, 6-4 victory over Russian Alisa Kleybanova.

Post match a reporter asked Venus how she felt about being placed on the well known "graveyard of champions" court again. Venus said,"...let's keep it on the real, real. I'm here for the tennis, on all courts." Now take that to the bank and cash it! The truth is the truth, and that's what's real.

On the same subject, Serena stated, “At the end of the day I’m going to focus on my match. I don’t want to go out there and lose because I’m angry at being on Court Two.”

"It wasn't what I would have liked to see, initially I thought, 'OK, is this the right schedule?' I thought maybe there was a mistake.

"Granted, I do think it's weird, especially having a female champ who has won this tournament four times. I've only won twice, but hey, that's not so bad."

Following the victory of big sis, Serena came right behind her and revealed more truth with a 6-3, 6-3 victory over fellow American Bethanie Mattek, who put on a fabulous display of tennis. Hopefully we'll get to see a bit more of her this year.

Shortly thereafter, both of the sisters returned to the dreaded court once more to play doubles against Spaniards Anabel Medina Garriques and Virginia Ruano Pascual. The sisters defeated them 6-1, 6-4.

Both sisters will be on show courts today for the quarterfinal round.

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SINGLES

Round 1

Alexandra Stevenson, USA vs. T-Hsuan Hwang

Erica Robertson, USA vs. Soledad Esperon, ARG


QUALIFYING ROUNDS*

Final Round

Sloane A. Stephens defeated Mary Gambale
6-2, 6-0


*Eliminated during qualifying rounds:

Tiya Rolle, USA



SINGLES

Round 1

Nicholas Monroe, USA defeated Michael Yani, USA
7-6(4), 6-3

Scoville Jenkins, USA vs. Phillip Simmonds, USA


DOUBLES

Round 1

Nicholas Monroe, USA and Phillip Simmonds, USA
vs.
Robert Kendrik, USA and Ryan Sweeting



SINGLES

Round 1

Marcus Fugate, USA vs. Andrew Roberts, AUS


DOUBLES

Round 1

Marcus Fugate, USA and Lance Vodicka, USA
vs.
Somdev Dev Varman, IND and Treat Huey, USA

For More Information About These tournaments click here.

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The South African doubles team of Jeff Coetzee and Wesley Moodie were knocked out of the second round of the Gentlemen's Doubles on Saturday.

Spaniards Feliciano Lopez and Fernando Verdasco defeated the team 6-7(2/7), 2-6(6/7), 6-7(3/7).

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For American Venus Williams, Day 6 of the Championships at Wimbledon presented a challenging yet satisfying day at the office. Venus proved not only to be the victor, but set a new serve record. Granted, the new record replaces a previous one set by both she and her sister Serena, but a new record is a new record. Venus hit a 127 mph serve, the fastest women’s serve ever recorded at Wimbledon. She also holds the women’s tour record with a 129 mph serve at last year’s U.S. Open.

In the midst of all of this record breaking on Saturday, Venus continued to defend her 2007 Wimbledon crown against Spanish qualifier Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez and defeated her 6-1, 7-5. As is evident by the score, Venus was able to get through the first set with barely a scratch, but Sanchez adjusted her game plan and made the match quite a bit more competitive in the second set.

Post match Venus said, "It was a great strategy," ... "In the first set it wasn't working for her from the baseline. I was impressed with the way she changed strategy and made it really competitive in the second."

"I was very pleased with the performance, things got close in the second set. She was really playing well and I had to come up with something more than she was giving."

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