The Billie Jean King Cup in the BNP Paribas Showdown took place on Monday night in New York, and the winner is seven-time Grand Slam champion Venus Williams, who defeated Kim Clijsters 6-4, 3-5, 7-5.
The event began with the one-set, no-ad semifinals played at the Madison Square Garden. Kim Clijsters defeated Serena Williams’ replacement Ana Ivanovic 7-2, while Venus Williams took care of Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-4.
Serena Williams withdrew a week ago because of her leg, ending what would have been the first meeting between her and Clijsters since the U.S. Open semifinals in September. That was the match in which Serena unleashed a tirade against a line judge after she was called for a foot fault near the end of the match, and Clijsters went on to win the championship.
In this event, Venus Williams broke Clijsters in the first game and then held each of her serves to win the first set. Up 40-0 in the final game, Williams aced to take the set.
In the second set, Williams again won the first two games but got sloppy, volleying one break point out of bounds and hitting another past the baseline. Clijsters held her serve for the rest of the set to win.
Williams was down 3-4 in the final set when Clijsters hit a volley into the net on break point to tie the set. The pair held their serve the rest of the way until Clijsters, down 15-40, hit the break point past the baseline to hand Williams the win and $400,000 of the astonishing $1.2 million prize money. It was a good two weeks for Venus, earning $787,000 in prize money in the past two weeks and one day ($350,000 for Dubai victory, $37,000 for winning Acapulco, and now the latest $400,000).
Billie Jean King did not attend the event because she is recovering from a recent double-knee replacement.
