Venus keeping family flag flying

TENNIS Wimbledon ChampionshipsFor the first time since the championships began, the women's draw finally fell into some sort of order following a week of seizures. Two reasonable days and the tournament has seamlessly coughed up four names after weather pandemonium threatened to strangle it at birth. We wonder how it ever got here,writes Johnny Wattersonat Wimbledon

Two of the surviving characters, Venus Williams and Justine Henin, expected to be part of the long journey and know the territory. Henin is hoping to become the 10th woman in history to win all four Grand Slams. Williams is keeping the family name flying. Her them-against-us mentality has been further sharpened since it was suggested Serena had faked the seriousness of her injury earlier in the week. Unflappable and to the point, the older sister rose to her sibling's defence.

"Serena has been a wonderful sportsperson and anyone who suggests that her injury was not as severe as it was, is clearly ignorant," said Venus. "So, I'm definitely offended."

Williams played against Svetlana Kuznetsova like she was definitely offended. The Russian fifth seed got the same biting treatment as the Russian diva, Maria Sharapova, in the last round, the tennis equivalent of having one's face slapped hard many times.

The other two players in the semi-finals, Marion Bartoli and Ana Ivanovic, are first-timers, while Williams and Henin are, in that sense, lifers, although Ivanovic has some history of grand-standing at Grand Slams. She was the cadaver for Henin's sharp knife in the Roland Garros final. The young Serb now faces Williams and hopefully won't corpse again, while French girl Bartoli plays the Belgian French Open winner.

Given Williams's progression, there is little to be said except whoah! The older Williams returned, the one that has won three times at Wimbledon and twice at the US Open. Where she came from nobody knows. She arrived into the tournament ragged and a danger to fans as balls were sprayed all around the pristine acreage. But now she's hitting the white lines.

Her serve has been renovated over the course of the first week and while Kuznetsova could match the American in the rallies, it was finding a door into them that was the main problem.

One service break gave Williams the first set 6-3 before a second set, where she earned 13 break points, turned a little fraught. Serving at 5-4 for the match, Williams went 40-0 up, then allowed Kuznetsova back to deuce. By then the Russian was a busted flush but still in the match bluffing away with Williams unable to close. Finally she did so on the fifth match point.

Her meeting with Ivanovic will be baseline tennis, each bashing away at the other's backhand, their slightly weaker sides. But 19-year-old Ivanovic, in her first match on Centre Court against 18-year-old Nicole Vaidisova, fought from behind and faced down three match points before claiming it 7-5 in the third. Maybe she has learned a tough lesson from her French roasting by Henin.

"It was very tough," said Ivanovic. "I was a break down in the second set. I was a break down in the third set. To come back and win it was amazing for me.

"Venus is in great shape. It's going to be very tough but I have experience. I've played on Centre Court already so I just want to go back tomorrow and enjoy."

Few see the semi-final match-ups as anything other than demonstrations of authority from the two five-time Grand Slam winners. The industrious Bartoli, with nothing to lose and having beaten third seed Jelena Jankovic, has never been beyond the third round and has not won a tournament this season. But she did reach the semi-finals at the two grass tournaments at Eastbourne and Birmingham.

"I work hard. I'm a great competitor," said Bartoli after the Jankovic match. "I think when it gets tough, I'm tougher than my opponents. When it's really tight and you have to go through to win, that's what I practise for.

"Tennis is an individual sport and you have to figure out the way to win. It's inside you. It's not from outside. So the key for me is to try to find the key inside me."

She's not talking her way out of it. That's for sure.