Third time's a charm for Qiang Wang versus Slam nemesis Venus Williams

PARIS—Qiang Wang had read this script before, and she knew she didn’t like the ending.

In the first round at Roland Garros last year, the 26-year-old native of China had pushed Venus Williams hard before losing in two tight sets. Four weeks later, in the second round at Wimbledon, Wang had Venus down a set, and on the ropes in the second, before Venus sprinted past her and left her in the dust. To add insult to injury, Wang was forced to keep watching as Venus ran all the final to the final two weeks later.

On Sunday in Paris, the same movie was playing in front of Wang. Again she was facing Venus early at a major. Again she was the better player in the first set; she broke Venus in a long opening game, and broke her at 4-4. In the battle of the two-handed backhands that made up the core of this contest, Wang’s was more than a match for Venus’. The two traded belted the ball crosscourt with their backhands, until one of them sent a surprise bullet up the line for a winner.

Again, though, just when Wang began to hope, Venus quickly snuffed those hopes out. What’s the Williams’ answer to an opponent who is matching their pace from the baseline? Add more pace until the other player can’t match it anymore. That’s what Venus did to go up 3-0 in the second set.

Anyone who has watched Venus and her Grand Slam renaissance over the last two years had a good idea what was coming next: a stubborn three-set win for the ageless Williams, which would lead to more stubborn three-set wins in the coming days. Her draw made a deep run look highly plausible.

But this time something was different—Wang had finally had enough of that story. Down 0-3 in the second, she dug harder than she had all match to stay with Venus’ power; she slid, she scrambled, she defended, and in the end she avoided going down a potentially fatal double break. After that desperate defensive stand, Wang worked her way into the rallies again.

Having began to lose the battle of the backhands, Wang did whatever it took to backpedal and hit as many forehands as possible. And she hit them for all they were worth. At 2-3, Wang saved a break point with a forehand pass and a fist-pump; at 3-4, she held serve with a blistering inside-in forehand winner and another fist-pump. At 4-4, she went up 0-30 on Venus’ serve with a series of strong forehands, before Venus finally answered with some furious ground-stroke brilliance of her own.

But Venus could only stay with this newly determined, newly lethal Wang for so long. The world No. 91 held her nerve at the end—there were no double faults and no nervous shanks when she served for the match—and the errors finally flowed from Venus’ racquet.

WATCH: Match point

“I think I had nothing to lose,” said Wang after her 6-4, 7-5 win, “so I just focus on the court.”

As far as courts go, she may have a new favorite.

“I just started to play [on clay] last year,” she said with a laugh. “I think I played really well.”

Venus, terse and disconsolate afterward, could only agree.

“I think she just played well,” Williams said. “I mean, all the times we’ve played, she’s played great. I think her game just got better and better during the match.”

WATCH: Venus' post-match press conference

Venus has now lost two straight first-round matches at majors for the first time. Is it too early to think that her late-career surge has run its course? She’ll turn 38 next month, after all. But history says it’s always too soon to worry about Venus. She’s still ranked ninth, she still had a solid spring hard-court season, and she’s likely still motivated to play in her sixth summer Olympics two years from now in Tokyo.

Today, though, Venus had trouble finding anything positive in this loss. When a reporter tried to give her a pep talk by asking, “How motivated are you to bounce back for the clay season?” Venus wasn’t ready to be hopeful.

“I have now, like five weeks to wait,” she said. “There’s nothing more I can do.”

We’ll see Venus down the road. For now, we’ll find out where Qiang Wang can take her newfound love of clay at age 26. She’s already flipped one movie script at this event.

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