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Serena, Venus on course for final clash
LONDON: Serena and Venus Williams closed in Tuesday on a fifth all-sister Wimbledon final while beaten quarter-finalist Dominika Cibulkova prepared to rush back
LONDON: Serena and Venus Williams closed in Tuesday on a fifth all-sister Wimbledon final while beaten quarter-finalist Dominika Cibulkova prepared to rush back to Slovakia to get ready for her wedding.
Six-time champion Serena reached her 10th semi-final at the All England Club with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Russia 21st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.
She goes on to face Russian world number 50 Elena Vesnina on Thursday for a place in the final.
Five-time champion Venus, seeded eight, enjoyed a 7-6(7/5), 6-2 victory over Kazakhstan’s world number 96 Yaroslava Shvedova to reach her first Wimbledon semifinal in seven years.
The 36-year-old will now face German fourth seed and Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber who reached her second Wimbledon semifinal with a 7-5, 7-6 (7/2) win over Simona Halep, the fifth seed from Romania. Vesnina made her first semi-final at a major, by seeing off bride-to-be Cibulkova, the Slovak 19th seed, 6-2, 6-2.
“They showed Venus’s score on court and I was like ‘yaaaay’. I want her to win so bad, but not in the final if I’m there,” said defending champion Serena, who took her Grand Slam match win record to 302 — four behind Martina Navratilova’s all-time mark.
SERENA KEEPS FOCUS
On the potential of an all-Williams final, Serena refused to get too far ahead of herself even though she has a 4-0 winning record over Vesnina.
“We don’t really talk too much about it but we are playing doubles later so we are just happy to be in the semi-finals,” she said.
Venus is the oldest women’s semi-finalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994.
Venus, who won the last of her seven Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in 2008, is back in the last-four of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2010 US Open.
The American said lifting the trophy again would be “like that movie ‘Wimbledon’”.
“Real life is what Hollywood is based off of - so, hey, let’s do it,” she told reporters.
“It’s been a journey, but it’s made me stronger. The good part is I always felt like I had the game. I’ve been blessed to have an opportunity to be here.”
WEDDING FOR CIBULKOVA
Cibulkova is due to marry fiance Miso Navara in her hometown of Bratislava on Saturday — the same day as the women’s final — and the 27-year-old was willing to postpone the ceremony if she won her quarter-final. But 29-year-old Vesnina triumphed to become the fifth unseeded woman to reach the All England Club semi-finals since the Grand Slams switched to 32 seeds in 2001.
