Venus survives scare

Venus Williams defied the curse of court two for the second time in seven days to finally reach the fourth round of the women’s singles.

The three-times former champion had to come from behind on the “graveyard of seeds” in her first round match against Russia’s Alla Kudryavtseva and was on the brink today before securing a 6-2 3-6 7-5 win over a battling Akiko Morigami.

The Japanese girl appeared to lose her nerve when she served for the match at 5-3 but Williams made no mistake despite steady drizzle which turned into a mini downpour seconds after she clinched victory.

Rain had come to Williams’ aid on Saturday afternoon when she found herself a double break down.

Morigami, the world number 71 who has never been past the third round, produced a love service game when the match resumed an hour later than scheduled to make it four games in a row and looked like making up for lost time.

Williams, the champion in 2000, 2001 and 2005, lost her grip on the match after encountering all sorts of problems with her serve on Saturday and she came up with four double faults in her opening service game today.

Down 0-40, Williams saved six set points before finally holding and then broke her Japanese opponent to get the score back to 3-5.

However, her woes continued in the next game in which she came up with four more double faults and, although she saved three more set points, Morigami broke for a third time to take the set 6-3 and level the match.

Morigami, who took the American to three sets in their first-ever meeting in Memphis earlier this year, came from 0-40 down to hold serve in the fifth game of the deciding set.

It was then Williams’ turn to come from 0-40 down on her own serve and held on with the aid of a second 120mph serve.

The set went with serve until the eighth game when a lucky net cord gave Morigami a break point and Williams followed it with a 14th double fault of the match.

Serving for the match amid rising tension at 5-3, the Japanese girl appeared to lose her nerve as she was broken to love and she dropped her serve again to trail 5-6.

To add to the drama, rain began to fall as Williams served for the match but play was allowed to continue and the American came from 15-40 down to clinch victory after two hours and five minutes.