Wimbledon ladies semi-finals preview

Venus Williams

Featured

Schuettler swings into Indian Wells main draw

After coming through qualifying, former Australian Open finalist Rainer Schuettler holds the unenviable tag of ‘the oldest player’ in the draw at Indian Wells

Latest Category Articles

Order of play, Thursday July 2
Centre Court, 1pm start
Elena Dementieva (RUS) V Serena Williams (USA)
Dinara Safina (RUS) V Venus Williams (USA)

Betting
Serena 1-5 / Dementieva 4-1
Venus 2-9 / Safina 4-1

Serena V Dementieva

What better line-up in the women’s singles semi-finals than the top four seeds and the top four players in the world? The first of the day’s contests pitches two-time winner and second seed Serena against the Championships’ fourth seed Elena Dementieva. While all the talk has been of the Williams sisters, Victoria Azarenka and the grunters this year, Dementieva has been quietly going about her business out of the spotlight to move into her second successive Wimbledon semi-final. Like Venus, the Russian hasn’t lost any more than five games in any match so far and has a half-decent record against Serena, having won three of their eight meetings. The Russian notched up three successive wins against Serena from 2007 to 2009, although lost their most recent clash in the semis at the Aussie Open in January. Serena has been awesome at this year’s Championships and she will be keen to progress to her second successive final at the All England Club for the chance to go for her eleventh major.

Venus V Safina

The second of Thursday’s semis sees No.1 seed and world No.1 Dinara Safina attempt to stop five-time champion Venus Williams from moving into her eighth Wimbledon singles final. The pair have never met on grass and it’s Venus who takes a winning 2-1 head-to-head record into the contest, although Safina won their most recent meeting on clay in the semi-finals of Rome in May. That will give her confidence together with the fact that she has slowly been getting better as the tournament has progressed. She’s a battler and she demonstrated that quality by fighting back from the brink of defeat in her last two matches – against Amelie Mauresmo and Sabine Lisicki – although she must serve better than she did against the German in the last eight when she threw in 15 doubles faults if she is to make any impression on the defending champion. Venus has been the picture of consistency as she bids for a hat-trick of titles in SW19. She clobbered Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1, 6-2 in the quarters and has dropped no more than five games in any of her five victories.

Coaching editor Dave Sammel says…

Williams sisters all the way. I cannot see either Russian having enough mental aggression to win. Dementieva has a game that can trouble Serena but mentally in a semi-final I can’t see it happening.