Williams wilts as Shaughnessy strength tells

When Venus Williams said she was going back to the drawing board after losing to an American compatriot, Megan Shaughnessy, 7-6, 6-1, in the fourth round of the Nasdaq-100 Open here, one or two of us wondered if the world No 2 was planning to quit the game to concentrate on her business as an interior designer.

Apparently not. "I enjoy to compete," the older Williams sibling emphasised. "That's the whole thing of tennis. If you don't like to compete, then it's not a good sport to be in. I'm going to practise and go over to Europe [for the clay court season] in the beginning of May."

Aside from finishing second to her sister Serena in the last four Grand Slam singles championships, or being beaten by injuries, Venus, 22, does lose many matches in which she is still on her feet. Her last defeat to an outsider [someone not in the family] was to Magdalena Maleeva, of Bulgaria, in Moscow last September.

Monday night's match against Shaughnessy appeared to be moving towards a routine win for Venus after she took a 3-0 lead in the opening set, but her opponent fought back, won the tie-break, 7-2, and swept to a 5-0 lead in the second set. Only in the concluding two games, which took more than 20 minutes, did Shaughnessy's nerve waver, enabling Williams to save eight match points.

"It's impossible to win every match," Williams said. "I could not seem to get the ball to go in today. It's disappointing to lose, but she hit a lot of good shots."

Shaughnessy, a 23-year-old from Arizona, ranked No 22 in the world, had defeated Williams once in their previous six matches, in Stanford in 2001. Instead of wailing about the Williams sisters being too strong for everybody else, Shaughnessy decided to join the Athlete's Performance training programme and has gained 15 pounds of muscle over the last two years.

"My whole body has changed," she said. "I'm much stronger, faster, more flexible and more durable. When I walk on the court, there's not anybody that's going to beat me because I got tired or I wasn't fast enough. It's a confidence booster knowing that." In today's quarter-finals Shaughnessy will play another compatriot, Jennifer Capriati, the former world No 1, who has won their six previous matches.

Capriati's tennis has caused less of a stir here than the music she chose to accompany her arrival on court – 'Bombs Over Baghdad' which is a 1999 rap record by Outkast. Bob Ruf, the court supervisor, was handed the CD by Capriati before her match against Sarah Taylor on Monday.

"I listened to it," Ruf said, "and after about 57 seconds a woman comes on and starts chanting, 'Bombs over Baghdad, bombs over Baghdad.' I said, 'We can't play that.'" A public relations representative from the women's tour persuaded Ruf to comply with Capriati's request, but he decided to play just the first 57 seconds.

"I wouldn't choose that [music]," Martina Navratilova said, "but it's a question of freedom of expression. If our own President says he wants somebody, dead or alive, then 'Bombs Over Baghdad' is not going that much further. It's Jennifer's choice. I'm not going to criticise that."

Andy Roddick chose 'Born in the USA' by Bruce Springsteen as his introduction on Sunday, when he lost to his compatriot Todd Martin, who advanced to the quarter-finals yesterday with a 6-3, 6-3 win against the Czech Radek Stepanek. Martin now plays Paradorn Srichaphan, of Thailand, who had a walkover when Marcelo Rios, of Chile, withdrew because of a back injury.