Williams sisters on course for big showdown

SERENA WILLIAMS claimed she would be prepared to match the men by playing five-set matches after making a perfect run through to the Wimbledon semi-finals.

The Williams sisters remain on course to meet in Saturday’s final thanks to comfortable wins in their respective quarter-final matches yesterday. Venus raced into the last four with a 6-1 6-2 win over Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska on Court One, and was soon joined in the next round by younger sibling Serena, the two-time champion spending a little over an hour on court, cruising to a 6-2 6-3 win over teenager Victoria Azarenka to set up a last-four meeting with Elena Dementieva.

Women players now receive equal prize money in the grand slams despite still playing best-of-three-set matches but Williams insists she is ready to make the step up.

“I’m ready for five-set matches,” she said. “On grass it would be fine. I can definitely play five sets.

“It’s one, two, three and four in the semis so I think the seeding is right. Those top players are really playing their top game so (the fans are) definitely getting (their) money’s worth.”

Both of tomorrow’s semi-finals will be American-Russian affairs, with Venus facing top seed Dinara Safina, and Serena admits the Americans are improving with every match.

“We definitely upped our level of game today,” she said. “We had really tough opponents, so we had to.”

Venus, who had already made light of her quarter-final opponent Agnieszka Radwanska, watched her sister produce an error-free first set to draw first blood against Azarenka.

The Arizona-based Belarussian threatened to strike back in the opening game of the second set, successfully challenging a baseline call to force her first break points of the match, but Williams simply produced three booming serves to avert the danger before pushing on to see out the match comfortably.

“I really wanted to do well today,” Serena said. “I didn’t go well the last time we played.”

Azarenko, the first woman from Belarus to reach the quarter-finals at Wimbledon since Natasha Zvereva in 1998, admitted that Williams is virtually unbeatable on today’s form.

“She was striking the ball so hard and so good,” she said. “She didn’t give me many opportunities. She really showed the unbeatable Serena today.

“It was just her day and she played amazing tennis.”

Venus, who won the title last year by beating Serena, finds it hard to imagine anything other than another showdown with her sister.

“I just think the style of game Serena and I play, we play better than the other women,” said Venus.

“We’re just very aggressive. I think that shows in our results.”

Safina faced the hardest test in the quarter-finals, coming back from a set down against surprise package Sabine Lisicki to win 6-7 (5/7) 6-4 6-1 in almost two-and-a-half hours on a sweltering Centre Court.

“I’ve never got so far here so whenever I win a match, I’m really happy,” she said. “But I’m enjoying it, taking one match at a time and at the moment it’s working.”

Dementieva’s 6-2 6-2 victory over Italian Francesca Schiavone means the top four seeds are all through to the semi-finals.

As has happened with the Williams sisters, Dementieva has yet to drop a set at this year’s Wimbledon but the Russian is expecting things to be much tougher against Serena.

“I think it was good to win all these matches in two sets and save some energy,” she explained.

“I wish I’d had a little bit more of a fight though before this round.

“We’ll see if I’m going to be ready for the big one.”