Venus Rising

Welcome to post #701 on Tennis From The Backseat, for all Jodi's meandering tennis ramblings. Enjoy the ride.

Today we're talking Venus. Why? Because Venus is winning freaking everything at the moment, that's why. In fact, I would go so far to say that if you had to pick the most in form player on the women's tour at that very moment, it would be Venus. And that isn't something I say lightly, because I have really not been especially impressed with Venus over the last couple of years.

But one cannot deny the facts. Two tournament wins in two weeks - Venus can rightly be crownded eternal queen of Acapulco, in my book - as well as a win over some quality, quality opponents at the Billie Jean Cup. I mean, sure, it's an exo event, and if you had Venus vs Kimmie on a bigger stage, maybe the match would have gone a different way, but wins over Clijsters and Kuznetsova are, well, wins over Clijsters and Kuznetsova, and not something to be taken lightly.

The question is, however - how far is this run of awesomeness going to go?

We all know V isn't going to play Indian Wells, so the next time we see her in action will be in Miami. It is obviously very good for her to have a rest after these intense few weeks, but I will be interested to see how she performs in Miami. Is this just a mini hot streak - like the one she regularly goes on at Wimbledon? (It's not unfair to say that Acapulco is Venus's second Wimbledon, the amount of titles she's won there). Or is this form going to be carried across past Miami into the clay season?

In short, are we going to see a V who could do damage at Roland Garros?

I would like to think that we could, if only to shake things up a bit. Venus has never traditionally done that well on the red clay of Paris (except, as previously noted, that one time in 2002) and it would be interesting to see the dynamic if she suddenly did make a run at it. That, combined with the return of Henin... even in the WTA, we live in interesting times!