After she lost to Victoria Azarenka in the semifinals of the Qatar Open, Venus Williams says that she will rise. The 34-year-old Williams is back in the Top 20, currently ranked No. 17, and wants to keep going. "Definitely I want to be high ranked and I enjoy it," she said. "Who doesn't? I feel like I'm working hard at it. With time I think it'll come."
This season, Williams has had some good runs, but also fallen to some in-form players. She won Auckland to start the year, and then beat Agnieszka Radwanska in the fourth round of the Australian Open. But then she lost to Madison Keys in three sets in the quarterfinals. The former No. 1 won both of her matches in Fed Cup against Argentina on clay, but lost to Lucie Safarova in the second round of Dubai. In Doha, she beat Barbora Zahlavova-Strycova in a third-set tiebreak, then bested Radwanska again before her defeat to Victoria Azarenka.
Williams said that the other players are getting better and better. "I felt like every player I played just played literally at the top of their game," she said. "It was just one of these weeks where everybody just played amazing, and so I'm hoping that in the next coming weeks it won't be like that. It'll be a long year if every opponent I play is just this much on top. It shows a level of competition and how much people want to win this event."