Venus denied record, final slot

Venus Williams's strong run in the Pan Pacific Open came to an end with a narrow semi-final defeat to seventh seed Petra Kvitova on Friday.

Venus Williams's strong run in the Pan Pacific Open came to an end with a narrow semi-final defeat to seventh seed Petra Kvitova on Friday.

Kvitova rallied to beat the former world number one 3-6 6-3 7-6 (2) in Tokyo to set up a final against fifth-seeded German Angelique Kerber, who beat Denmark's Caroline Wozniacki 6-4 7-6 (5) in the other semi-final.

Williams, who has suffered a spate of injuries over the last two years, has seen her ranking slide to 63 but showed glimpses of her best form during her second-round defeat of world number two and top seed Victoria Azarenka.

She was also denied a chance to better her world record of 207.6 km per hour for fastest serve in women's tennis.

Williams blasted a 209 km per hour serve during her quarter-final match against Eugenie Bouchard.

However it was not considered as IDS speed-measuring radar guns used by the WTA are not deployed in Tokyo.

Paes, Somdev crash out
New Delhi: Leander Paes and his Italian partner Daniele Bracciali lost their semifinal match 3-6 4-6 in Thailand Open while Somdev Devvarman and his South African partner Rik De Voest went down fighting 6-0 2-6 7-10 in their last four match in Malaysian Open.