Venus out for revenge against Serena’s conqueror

VENUS WILLIAMS will bid to avenge sister Serena’s US Open quarter-final defeat to top-seed Justine Henin at Flushing Meadows tonight when she gets her chance against the French Open champion in the last four.

Henin powered past eighth seed Serena Williams in their quarter-final, winning 7-6, 6-1 against the Australian Open champion on Tuesday night. That gave Venus Williams added incentive to come through her own quarter-final on Wednesday night, when the Wimbledon champion, seeded eighth in this last grand slam of the year, needed a third-set tiebreak to get past third seed Jelena Jankovic.

Venus Williams said she took her sister’s defeat personally and added: “I wasn’t happy with the result at all, to say the very least.

“I was sad that Serena lost because I didn’t like to see her so upset.”

Williams said she recognised the woman she would face tomorrow would be a totally different player to the one she last met on court three-and-a-half years ago.

“I think she’s definitely improved. She’s done what she can with her game.”

For Henin’s part, she said facing Venus would mean preparing for a very different match than she experienced against Serena. “For sure, they’re different styles but I didn’t watch Venus that much in the last few months, so it will be another good test for me for sure. And I will have to, you know, just be myself, play my tennis, play my game.”

The opening women’s semi-final at Arthur Ashe Stadium today will be an all-Russian affair between fourth seed and 2004 champion Svetlana Kuzentsova and number six Anna Chakvetadze.

Whether one of the men’s semis turned out to be an all-Spanish contest depended on Carlos Moya last night. Moya, at 31 the oldest man left in the singles draw, was trying to upset third-seeded Novak Djokovic in the late-night match on Ashe.

The Spaniard and the Serb were bidding to join David Ferrer in the last four after the man who knocked out second seed Rafael Nadal eased past Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina in straight sets earlier.

Ferrer, 25, booked his place in a grand slam semi-final for the first time in his career with a 6-2, 6-3, 7-5 win over number 20 Chela.

Ferrer took control of the opening set as the two players traded powerful ground strokes in long rallies.

There was no questioning Chela’s commitment and effort and he made Ferrer fight tooth and nail for both the second and third sets. But there was nothing he could do about the Spaniard’s impressive service game, which halfway through the second set was returning an 83% success rate on his first serve.

Chela, though, was not going Quietly and having served strongly to take the opening game of the third set, he broke serve in the next game just as Ferrer was looking to kill the match. But Ferrer hit straight back to get back on serve at 2-1.

The Argentine eventually cracked in the 11th game when a weak backhand into the net handed Ferrer the all-important break.

Ferrer served for the match at 6-5 and did not hang about in killing it off.