Yahoo Sports 
Agnieszka Radwanska dominates depleted Venus Williams to win the Rogers Cup
MONTREAL – Why are both of these women smiling so broadly? Only one was the winner.
In the end, it was almost poetic justice that Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska, who has participated in the Rogers Cup for the last six consecutive years without fail, was finally rewarded with the big trophy after a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Montreal Rogers Cup neophyte Venus Williams in the women's final.
"I‘ve been playing here for years, a couple of times to the semis. I was trying, trying and finally I did it," Radwanska said, her voice trembling just that little bit with emotion, in her trophy acceptance speech on court. "I always liked Canada, but now …"
In the end, both were winners. Radwanska wins because she took a big Premier-level title at a tournament that, with the exception of Li Na of China, had a full field with all the top players in the world. Williams wins because despite running on fumes for Sunday's final, she had a renaissance week and adopted a new "home away from home" after nearly 20 years on the circuit.
"It's been a really long week. I played like six matches in a row. Against her you really have to be patient. Today I just didn't have everything to be patient and really work the point," Williams said. "I just fell a little short today. I wanted to give more, but I just didn't have it."
The good news for Williams is that the fatigue was merely the result of playing too much, a good problem to have in tennis. There have been times in recent years where, because Williams is dealing with an auto-immune disease called Sjogren's, she would play a good match – then wake up the next morning without any energy at all and be unable to play.
"Instead of unreasonable fatigue that's unconquerable, just the opposite really: a fatigue from too much success," she said. "That's the positive of today. I ran out of energy because I was winning too many matches. I haven't had that problem in a long time."
The desire was certainly there from Williams. But Radwanska, a dangerous opponent always, is especially dangerous when you don't have the legs to run side to side to side on the court for a few hours. She spots weaknesses and frailties like few other players, and has an arsenal of underappreciated weapons to exploit them.
"The way I see it, she's the least flashy of the top 10 but in the locker room, according to what people tell me, she laughs all the time," said tournament director Eugene Lapierre, a fine player in his day. "On the court, she needs the opponent's power. She likes the rhythm. Venus, I would say, played right into her hands. She wanted to be aggressive - a little too much, I think.
"You never get the impression that she has big shots but yet, she wins," Lapierre added. "She has incredible court movement. And yet, you don't even get the impression she's running. It's a textbook case."
Williams was firing her serve between 195 and 200 km/hour. And yet she had just one ace. Radwanska would somehow get her racquet on the missiles, and Williams often would overhit the next ball and make an error, partly because she seemed unprepared for the quality of the return. She ended up going for more and more, and her first-serve percentage was just 47 per cent.
Radwanska, conversely, had three aces. The first two barely broke 140 km/hour. The last one, on match point, was powered at 167 km/hour right down the T.
She lobbed up some puffball second serves for Williams to crush but more often than not, especially when she earned several love-40 or 15-40 advantages on Radwanska's serve, Williams failed to even put the return in play. Radwanska won 56 per cent of her second-serve points; Williams's percentage was a sub-par 27 per cent.
"Of course, I can't really serve like Venus. A couple times around 200 (kilometres per) hour. This is my tactic, you know, just to find the right spot, even when the serve is much shorter," Radwanska said.
The matchup exposed a couple of Williams' perennial weaknesses, which she kept impressively under wraps throughout a throwback week. But when tired, or tight, Williams always has had a tendency to collapse down on that powerful serve, sending missed serves disproportionately into the bottom of the net rather than beyond the service line.
As well, as much as she's hailed as a great volleyer, the truth is that throughout her career, Williams has never ventured forward nearly as much as she should or could have. Stubbornly so, at times. Adding that dimension consistently to her game could have potentially doubled her total of five Wimbledons.
Against Radwanska, wanting to shorten the points as much as she could, she did try to take the net. But Williams missed some pretty routine volleys. And she lost points where instead of closing in further and finishing the point off, she backtracked and found herself out of position.
Those were little openings that Radwanska has made a career out of wriggling through. And she had a huge advantage in that just about every day on Tour, Radwanska faces hard-hitting players and expertly deflects that pace. Williams, conversely, doesn't face players like Radwanska often. In fact, there are no other players like Radwanska, who also defeated Williams in straight sets in their previous two meetings.
Some of this, of course, is rust. Williams just hasn't played a whole lot of tennis the last couple of years.
"When you're out there training, you work hard so you can get the results. When you don't get them, you just go back to the drawing board," she said. "For me, it's starting to come. Finding myself in all these different situations where you're playing the world No. 1, you're in the semifinals, you're in a final, I've done it so many times, but yet I haven't done it in a while."
Radwanska began the week slowly after the cross-country trip from a tournament in Stanford, Calif. where the conditions were much different. They even used different tennis balls in Montreal, and will change them again in Cincinnati next week and again back to the Montreal balls (Wilson U.S. Open) for the U.S. Open.
"I think I was playing much better every match. I didn't start that well from my first match. I think every match was much better. That's why I think I sitting right here now with you guys," she said. "I really needed a couple of days to adjust everything, play my really great tennis the last couple days."
For Williams, the victory was in getting to the final, discovering a new city, and also in the process.
"What I enjoyed the most was just being able to compete, being able to push myself, being able to have the opportunity to really bring everything I had," she said. "So for me that felt amazing, just to have a chance, to be able to enjoy the competition. For me, that was the most amazing part of the week."
The bonus: with the finals appearance, Williams will return to the top 20 when the new WTA Tour rankings are released Monday.
