Criticism of Venus outfit rears up again, but her form still peachy

BEFORE sticking to the strict all-white dress code at Wimbledon next month, Venus Williams is indulging in some risque French cancan in Paris.

The American's black lace corset resembling an offcast from the nearby Moulin Rouge cabaret has been the talk of the French Open, and the accompanying tight skin-coloured knickers have raised just as many dumbstruck glares.

The second seed's 6-2, 6-4 second-round win over Spain's Arantxa Parra Santonja was very much a secondary issue for many yesterday.

"The design has nothing to do with the rear. It just so happens that I have a very well developed one," she chuckled during her post-match press conference.

The first Wednesday at Roland Garros is traditionally when Parisian schoolchildren are given priority for tickets, and they and their teachers almost got even more than they bargained for as the unconvincing red straps to Venus's dress threatened to reveal yet more of the American.

The world No 2 wore the outfit for the first time at the Sony Ericsson Open in Miami earlier this year and she uses her daring court appearances to promote her own line of fashions.

"It's really about the illusion. Like you can wear lace, but what's the point of wearing lace when there's just black under," she added.

"The illusion of just having bare skin is definitely for me a lot more beautiful. So it's really not about anything else other than just that skin showing."

Venus, who seems to prefer to talk fashion than tennis, believes her outfit is the symbol of her personality. "I try to represent what I think my personality is on the court. That's the first part of it," she said.

"The second part is sometimes you just dream it up. Sometimes you can see a dress and say, 'Hey, I really like those slits, so let me put that in my tennis dress'."

Elsehwere, the more modestly attired defending champion Svetlana Kuznetsova came within a whisker of being dumped out of the French Open after surviving four match points in an extraordinary second-round win over Andrea Petkovic.

Sixth seed Kuznetsova was out of sorts for two sets of her rain-affected match on Court One, and looked down and out when her opponent reached at 40-0 while serving for the match in the second. But German world No 41 Petkovic crumbled under the pressure, wasting all three of those match points and a fourth in a 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 defeat. Kuznetsova needed four match points herself to seal victory in two hours and 12 minutes and avoid arguably the biggest upset so far this year.

The Russian had cruised through round one, while Petkovic needed three sets to dispatch Elena Vesnina. But it was Kuznetsova who suffered most today in a topsy-turvy first set, dropping her serve every time she conceded break point. She also broke Petkovic twice but the 22-year-old did enough to take a one-set lead before the rain came.

Serve dominated once they returned to court but Petkovic once again made the most of a solitary break point. Serving for the match in game 10 of the second set, the German blew a 40-0 lead, saved two break-back points and wasted a fourth match point before finally dropping serve.

Kuznetsova made her pay by levelling the match and looked on course to complete a remarkable comeback when she went 2-0 up in the third. She let Petkovic back into it before wasting match points of her own at 5-2 and – on her own serve – at 5-3 before her opponent handed her the match in the next game.