11:01 AM Thu, Jul 03, 2008 | Permalink
Aaron Chimbel
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From the AP:
WIMBLEDON, England -- Venus and Serena Williams won in
straight sets Thursday to set up their third all-sister Wimbledon
final and seventh Grand Slam championship matchup.
Defending champion and four-time winner Venus beat Elena
Dementieva 6-1, 7-6 (3), then two-time champ Serena overcame two
rain delays and served 14 aces to down China's Zheng Jie 6-2, 7-6
(5).
It will be the first all-Williams final since 2003, when Serena
beat her older sister in the championship match for the second year
in a row.
Serena holds an 8-7 career edge over Venus, including 5-1 in
Grand Slam finals. Since Venus won the U.S. Open in 2001, Serena
has won five straight of their major finals.
"She's a tough opponent," Serena said. "I think she'll be the
toughest person I've played. I'm excited."
Said Venus: "It's every Williams for themself."
Venus overpowered the fifth-seeded Dementieva in the first set
and then prevailed in an error-filled tiebreaker to improve her
record to 7-0 in semifinals at the All England Club.
"I am dying for S. Williams to get through," said the
28-year-old Venus, who hasn't dropped a set in five matches and
will be going for her seventh Grand Slam title.
Venus then went back out to watch her 26-year-old sister, who
sat through rain breaks in both sets before cranking up her big
serve, saving a set point in the second set and finishing off the
133rd-ranked Zheng to put her one win away from a ninth Grand Slam
crown.
After Zheng dumped a second serve into the net on match point,
Serena looked more relieved than anything to get through the match.
Venus fiddled with her fingernails as she watched alongside their
father, Richard, in the players' box.
"She definitely pushed me," Serena said of Zheng, the first
Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam semifinal and first wild-card
entrant to get this far at Wimbledon. "Unbelievable, and not only
that she played a great game. She played like she had nothing to
lose and she didn't.
"I wanted to do more than make a Wimbledon final," she added.
"I'm just happy to be back in a Grand Slam final."
In men's play, 32-year-old Rainer Schuettler outlasted Arnaud
Clement 6-3, 5-7, 7-6 (6), 6-7 (7), 8-6 in a match that took two
days to complete. The German saved a match point at 5-4 in the
fifth set before pulling out a 5 hour, 12 minute victory that sends
him into the semifinals against No. 2 Rafael Nadal.
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