Is This The Face of the WTA for 2007?

Venus Williams beat Shahar Peer like a drum 6-1, 6-1 Saturday, February 24 to win the
Regions Morgan Championships and the Cellular South Cup.

Her father said she wasn't ready, that he wanted her to wait a few months. As I recall Oracene Price was singing the same song in Melbourne about their other daughter.

I wonder what other events Venus and Serena won't be ready for this year?

In related news Martina Hingis admitted that with Venus Williams and Serena Williams out with injuries she decided she could beat what was then the current competition.

"It wasn't the spotlight I missed. It was the challenge, the competition. I still felt I had something to give. I didn't want to have any regrets. I thought: 'I'm going to be 30 one day, maybe have a family. Why don't I try one more time before my body collapses totally.' When I stopped playing in 2003 the Williams sisters were very dominant, but a couple of years down the road they have been injured, not playing. Sometimes I was commentating, and I'd think: 'I could beat her'. Definitely I felt a bit like that. At the Australian Open in 2004, Patty Schnyder and Fabiola Zuluaga reached the semi-finals.

"Back in the days of Seles, Davenport, Capriati in their prime, players like that would never have featured in the Grand Slam semi-finals. I couldn't say it at the time, but I can say it now. So I wanted to give it another go before it was too late. Once you are a champion, you always know what to do."

The rest of the interview, a very good one, is here:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/main.jhtml?xml=/sport/2007/02/24/stmott24.xml

Shahar Peer shows she is a true competitor. Some may call her deluded but I don't fault her post match statements. It's better than James Blake's "happy to lose" comments he was making almost to the end of last year.

Peer said: "It was a very, very good week except for the final. The rest of the rounds were good, but this is the first time I have lost in a final, so it's not the happiest thing. Venus is very experienced and she was focused from the first game today. Against players like her I can't afford to start slowly."

Neither can the rest of the tour Shahar.