Sydney, September 27: Daniel Nestor and Sebastien Lareau, an odd couple from opposite sides of Canada's linguistic frontier, wrecked the all-conquering Woodies farewell party in the Olympic tennis doubles final here on Wednesday.The Canadian pair won 5-7 6-3 6-4 7-6 (7-2) to shatter the Australian pair's dream of a second Olympic gold in their last match together in front of their home crowd.The Woodies Mark Woodforde and Todd Woodbridge have won every thing there is to win in the doubles game: 11 Grand Slam titles, the Davis Cup and Olympic gold in Atlanta four years ago.But their partnership will come to an end when Woodforde retires at the end of the year. Before then they will play together one more time in the Davis Cup final against Spain in Barcelona in December.Despite the defeat, the Australian pair were happy to have bowed out at the Olympics after a year in which they finally won the one Grand Slam title to have evaded them, the French Open, and a sixth Wimbledon title.``This year has been a gold medal year for us,'' said Woodforde, who turned 35 on Saturday. ``Just because its silver today, our whole partnership has been gold. `'It'll always be gold and it won't be tarnished.''A tearful Woodbridge revealed that he plans to carry on playing doubles next year with Jonas Bjorkman.For Nestor and Lareau, the gold medal vindicated their decision to split with their regular doubles partners last year to give themselves the best possible chance of Olympic glory.Venus wins goldVenus Williams produced an awesome display of power tennis to blast rising Russian star Elena Dementieva off court in the Olympic women's tennis final here on Wednesday. Venus needed just 58 minutes to beat the number 10 seed 6-2 6-4 and secure an Olympic gold medal she will be able to hang round the Wimbledon and US Open trophies she has already won this year in the best run of her career so far.
