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Williams sisters make Wimbledon semifinals

WIMBLEDON, England (UPI) -- Serena and Venus Williams each advanced to the semifinals of The Championships at Wimbledon, pulling just a pair of matches away from an all-Williams final.

Serena Williams, seeded sixth, blitzed 14th-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska 6-4, 6-0 while Venus Williams, seeded seventh and the defending champion, beat Tamarine Tanasugarn 6-4, 6-3 in getting through Tuesday's quarterfinals.

Surprising Jie Zheng, having eliminated top-seeded Ana Ivanovic and No. 15 Agnes Szavay, pulled off her third consecutive upset by getting past 18th-seeded Nicole Vaidisova, 6-2, 5-7, 6-1, and No. 5-seeded Elena Dementieva beat 21st-seeded Nadia Petrova, 6-1, 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, in Tuesday's other matches.

Venus Williams needed just 95 minutes to get by Tanasugarn. Firing eight aces when serving and breaking Tanasugarn's serve four times when not.

She will meet Dementieva in Thursday's semifinals. Dementieva led 6-1, 5-1 before staggering through the rest of the second set. It was far from a perfect match with Dementieva piling up nine double faults and three service breaks against Petrova's 42 unforced errors and six breaks.

Serena Williams shut out Radwanska in 19 minutes in the second set to close out her quarterfinal win. Zheng was nearly as sharp in her third set as she became the first Chinese player to make a Grand Slam semifinal.

If they both win Thursday, the Williams sisters would meet in the Wimbledon finals for the third time. Serena Williams won the previous meetings in 2002 and 2003.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International

This news arrived on: 07/01/2008

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