Venus Williams strode into the semifinals of Wimbledon on Thursday while tournament organisers cast anxious glances to the sky.
Her younger sister Serena, beaten by Justine Henin in the quarters on Wednesday, rates Venus as the best grasscourt player left in the draw and the American proved her pedigree with a 6-3 6-4 defeat of Russian fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.
”Centre Court has just been good to Williams in the last seven years or so,” three-times former champion Venus told reporters. ”So it’s a good thing if your last name’s Williams here.”
Bizarrely, with so much doom and gloom over the weather, Venus took a different view.
”Rain is good for me,” she said. ”I feel like I achieve clarity actually when it rains.”
Her focus will now be on bubbly Serbian teenager Ana Ivanovic after she saved three match points in overcoming Nicole Vaidisova 4-6 6-2 7-5 in the last quarterfinal.
Under-fire tournament referee Andrew Jarrett would not share Venus’s upbeat analysis of rain, sweating over four outstanding men’s fourth round matches.
Luckily for him they were all completed so, barring more bad weather, the singles finals should both be played on schedule.
”At the moment we can finish on Sunday and that is what we plan to do, but obviously that can change,” Jarrett said.
Marcos Baghdatis and Czech Tomas Berdych obliged by getting through quickly but second seed Rafael Nadal was forced to go the distance again while Novak Djokovic took more than four hours to squeeze past Lleyton Hewitt 7-6 7-6 4-6 7-6.
It looked like the mental and physical energy spent beating Robin Soderling in a third round slog spanning three rainy days had taken its toll on Nadal as he went two sets down to Russian Mikhail Youzhny but he hit back, winning 4-6 3-6 6-1 6-2 6-2.
”After the first two sets maybe I played the best game on grass in my life,” said Nadal.
The irrepressible Spaniard will be back in action on Friday against big-serving Berdych after the Czech reached his first grand slam quarterfinal by downing grumpy Swedish veteran Jonas Bjorkman 6-4 6-0 6-7 6-0.
Cypriot Baghdatis conducted a band of raucous fans out on Court 13 with some swashbuckling tennis to beat durable Russian sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 7-6 6-3 and set up a meeting with Djokovic.
Venus is threatening to repeat her last title here in 2005 when she also came in under the radar seeded 14th.
This time she is down at 23rd but after thrashing Maria Sharapova on Wednesday she looks mean and moody.
She powered through the first set against the 2004 US Open champion and then broke in the third game of the second. Kuznetsova did mount some spirited resistance but there was no stopping Venus who wrapped up victory on her fourth match point. – Reuters