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LONDON — It has been five years since tennis had a sister v. sister final, and no one has to guess the surname.
The Williams sisters, Serena and Venus, played their last final at Wimbledon in 2003, with Serena winning.
Tuesday, it began to seem inevitable that the next Williams-Williams championship match will take place at Wimbledon on Saturday. Both advanced to the semi-finals with impressive victories – Serena 6-4, 6-0 over Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland, and Venus 6-4, 6-3 against Tamarine Tanasugarn of Thailand.
Thursday, Serena plays Zheng Jie of China and Venus goes against Elena Dementieva of Russia in the semi-finals.
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The enterprising Zheng, 5 foot 41/2, wrapped a bow on a fairy-tale run by showing more court craft than hard-hitting 18th-seeded Nicole Vaidisova.
A 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 winner, Zheng was the more crafty player, as she has been in upsetting three other seeded players, including top-seeded Ana Ivanovic. The six-foot Vaidisova was made to look like a mindless ball machine.
Granted a wild card because of her low ranking after shoulder surgery last September, Zheng is the only wild card to reach a Grand Slam semi-final in the open (post-1967) era besides Monica Seles at the 1995 U.S. Open. But Seles, coming back after 26 months following her stabbing in Germany, was unique because, though a wild card, she shared the first seed with Steffi Graf.
“I was never thinking I could make the semi-final,” said Zheng, 24. “I just tried my best to keep going.”
Winner of the 2006 Wimbledon doubles with compatriot Yan Zi, she is ranked No.133 in singles, but will move up to about No.40 with her Wimbledon success.
“When I was in my childhood, I was very lively and sporty,” she said through a translator about her start in tennis, “and my parents would like me to have more exercise to be healthy. To choose to play tennis was purely an accident because at the time there were not that many people who knew this game in China. But as soon as I started to play, I fell in love with it.”
The first Asian semi-finalist at a Grand Slam, she seems unlikely to get past Serena. Zheng lost 6-3, 6-1 to the younger Williams in the first round of Wimbledon in 2004, their only other meeting. “Serena is an outstanding player,” she said through the translator. “So far I haven't found any weak link about her.”
Dementieva was a 6-1, 6-7(6) 6-3 winner over countrywoman Nadia Petrova. Dementieva led by a set and 5-1 before losing the second set after holding two match points. Unlike a similar collapse at the recent French Open against Dinara Safina, she was able to regroup. “I was like, oops, I did it again,” she said with a laugh.
“It's okay to be nervous in a match, it's okay to be tight,” said Dementieva, who was hitting tentative second serves almost side-arm at her most nervous Tuesday.
Venus leads their head-to-head matches 5-2, including a 6-2, 6-4 victory in the 2000 Olympic gold medal singles match.
In men's doubles, Daniel Nestor reached his sixth Wimbledon semi-final (all previous with Mark Knowles of the Bahamas) as he and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia defeated Kevin Anderson of South Africa and Robert Lindstedt of Sweden 7-6(5), 6-4, 6-7(5), 6-3.
“It was a really tough match because they served huge,” Nestor said.
In Thursday's semi-finals, second-seeded Nestor-Zimonjic will play ninth-seeded Leander Paes of India and Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic. “Paes is a special player,” Nestor said. “He can completely take over a match, so we'll have to be careful.”
The near absence of rain during the 2008 Wimbledon has been so pronounced that Serena, who has incorporated a white trench coat into her on-court wardrobe, joked Tuesday: “I feel like I should make one again for next year because it's been a good omen for weather.”
Not yet maybe. There is precipitation in the forecast for every day from now through the end of the tournament.
Special to The Globe and Mail
