(AP)
Thursday, July 3, 2008

LONDON—Defending champion Venus Williams beat Elena Dementieva 6-1, 7-6 (3) to advance to the Wimbledon final today, setting up a potential championship matchup with sister Serena.
Venus Williams, a four-time Wimbledon winner, overpowered the fifth-seeded Russian in the first set and then prevailed in an error-strewn tiebreaker to improve her record to 7-0 in semifinals at the All England Club.

Her opponent in Saturday’s final could be two-time champion Serena, who was next up on Centre Court to face 133rd-ranked Chinese wild-card entrant Zheng Jie at press time.
It would be the first all-Williams final since 2003 when Serena beat Venus in the championship match for the second year in a row.
‘‘I am dying for S. Williams to get through,’’ said Venus, who will be going for her seventh Grand Slam title. ‘‘This is my seventh final here and I’m looking forward to playing Serena in our third final, and I’m going to be rooting her on.’’
Toronto’s Daniel Nestor and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia were scheduled to play their men’s doubles semifinal later today against Lukas Dlouhy of the Czech Republic and Leander Paes of India.
Dementieva, playing in her first Wimbledon semifinal, looked nervous and was completely overmatched in the first set by Williams’ sheer power and pace, but settled down and made it competitive in the second set.
After Dementieva knocked a forehand into the net to end the one-hour, 42-minute match, Venus skipped and hopped up and down with joy.
Venus hasn’t dropped a set in five matches.
‘‘It’s so exciting,’’ she said. ‘‘I lost serve once every match. That’s pretty impressive, too. I’m looking forward to that final.’’
Venus’ attacking game produced 28 winners and 19 unforced errors. The more defensive Dementieva had 12 winners and 22 errors.
Venus, the biggest server in women’s tennis, averaged 190 km/h on first serves and had a fastest serve of 201 km/h. Dementieva, known as one of the weakest servers in the game, averaged only 164 km/h on first serves.
Dementieva was highly animated throughout the match, shrieking at times and spinning around in frustration after errors. The men’s semifinals are set for tomorrow as five-time champion Roger Federer of Switzerland and Rafael Nadal of Spain head to a probable third straight Wimbledon championship showdown.
Federer will face a resurgent Marat Safin, a former No. 1 and two-time Grand Slam champion who used to detest playing at Wimbledon and is down at No. 75 in the ATP rankings. He’s the first Russian man to reach the Wimbledon final four in the 40-year history of the Open era.
Nadal will play either 94th-ranked Rainer Schuettler of Germany or No. 145 Arnaud Clement of France, who resumed their quarter-final today at one set apiece. Schuettler won the first set 6-3 and Clement took the second set 7-5 when play was suspended due to fading light yesterday on Court 1.