Nerves get better of China's Wang Yafan against Venus Williams at Hong Kong Open
American powers into quarter-finals of Hong Kong Open along with Cornet, Garcia and Kerber
Organisers of the Prudential Hong Kong Tennis Open at Victoria Park got the best result they could have hoped for yesterday as the seeded stars on show held up their end of the bargain to make it into the last eight.
Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams dominated China's Wang Yafan 6-0, 6-2 to keep her hopes of a late charge to Singapore for the end-of-season WTA Finals soirée alive.
The American took out world No 143 Wang in devastating fashion, wrapping up the match in just 63 minutes at the US$250,000 event.
In the first set she was clearly overwhelmed ... with more time and more experience against better players, she'll get used to it
But there were some highlights for the 21-year-old Chinese player - a gripping exchange at the net in the seventh game ended with her return dropping just on the baseline to secure a rare point and brought rapturous applause from a sympathetic centre court.
But in the main, she was overawed by a vastly superior opponent and inopportune unforced errors cost Wang on what was the biggest night so far of her short career.
Asked whether nerves affected her performance, Wang said: "I've only seen Venus on TV before … to actually play her made me very nervous and I don't think I was able to play my best tennis."
