Williams sends out warning she's back

Wimbledon ChampionshipsRoad tested in the ghetto of Compton, LA, and broken from a different mould from the rest, Venus Williams arrived not so long ago as nuclear-age material facing old petrol engines.

Williams was new tennis technology, an oversized game with an outsized body. She was a new, effective brand, but over the last three years had been struggling in a fight to prove to her opponents that her model did not have in-built obsolescence.

Williams had beaten only one top five player since 2002 and that was her younger sister Serena.

Yesterday, against Maria Sharapova on Centre Court, the 14th seed despatched the 2004 title holder and world number two 7-6 (7-2), 6-1 with a shrieking performance that was bigger and frequently more poisonously accurate than the Russian 18-year-old.

Williams' celebration afterwards suggested there was just a hint of revenge for Sharapova's defeat of Serena in last year's final.

Only a championship win will satisfy her stacked-up critics, but at the first serious asking of these two weeks, it was a case of out with the new flaky Williams and back with the old Compton graduate.

As in 2000 and 2001, when Williams won successive titles here with her animated father, Richard, pointing and jigging around in the players' enclosure, so the 25-year-old again sent out a message to the tennis world that could not have been any louder throughout a high quality semifinal.

Suspicions that Williams was coming towards her best were aired against Mary Pierce in the quarter-final with a 6-0 first set that took less than 25 minutes. Yesterday Sharapova endured the same level for two sets and like Pierce before her, the defence gave way.

"This was a good one. I did have some errors, but the good play balanced it out. I was so excited to be playing on Centre Court and was glad we stayed there. But this is the place to do it," said Williams after the match.

"I've been raising my form, working hard. My mum and dad, they made sure I'd listen and not be a hard-headed kid. I've a good record here. Last year I'd an unfortunate match, but I've fallen into step."

With burning eyes, and her teeth clenched throughout most of the one hour and 42 minutes, Williams punched back from a shaky first service game to rip into Sharapova on every ball.

Undoubtedly the match had the tempo and urgency of a final, neither player understanding the concept of half measure and both peppering the side and back lines so frequently that either could have choked on the chalk dust.

The screaming thumps from the players and the percussion from their racquet strings added an echoing background score to the struggle as they batted from the baseline for almost the entire match.

A backhand into the net from Sharapova gave Williams the first break point of the match, but the advantage lasted only two games as the first set noisily gathered towards a tiebreak. There Williams took the initiative and was able to control the points, Sharapova fatally giving her opponent a 4-1 lead before dropping the tiebreak 7-2 to go a set down.

Mentally the strongest of players, Sharapova crucially dropped service first game of the second set and from there by degrees of margins slowly allowed the match to run further from her control as Williams stepped up and returned more consistently. A second service game in the fifth game for 4-1 and at that point Sharapova had divorced herself from the contest.

A third service break for 6-1 and more quickly than expected the match finally fell the way of the American on her second match point.

"I don't think it has anything to do with family or anything like that. It was Venus out there. It wasn't Serena. I just played against a really good opponent," said the defeated champion.

"I don't think I played my best tennis but credit to her. She hit a lot of hard deep balls and she was serving consistently big.

"She wasn't making as many errors and obviously serving more consistently. When I came off the court, I knew the quality was good. But you also know you lost the match."

Williams is now 5-0 for Wimbledon semi-finals but more the quality than the quantity will have caught the attention of Lindsay Davenport and Amelie Mauresmo.

The other semi-final between the top seed American and French hope was rained off court in the third set with the match poised at 6-7, 7-6 and Davenport leading 5-3 in the final set.