Another year, another all-Williams final at Wimbledon. Saturday will mark the siblings fourth meeting in a Wimbledon final and their eighth grand slam final overall and though Venus cruised past Dinara Safina, Serena’s battle with Elena Dementieva was a reminder that winning big matches is not nearly as easy as they make it look.
Venus followed her little sister onto Centre Court with the whole place still buzzing with excitement after seeing Serena save a match-point to defeat a determined Dementieva 6-7(4), 7-5, 8-6. It was the best match of the tournament thus far and the Russian played her part in making such an absorbing contest. Had her forehand been just a smidgen more resilient she might have found herself bringing a distinctly Russian feel to the Fourth of July women’s final.
Instead Serena, as she has done so many times, found extra reserves of grit and gumption from goodness knows where, which is why she shares with Lleyton Hewitt the unofficial title of world’s most obstinate tennis player. When it comes to the winning back of lost causes, they embody a verse from Rudyard Kipling’s “If”. Neither Hewitt nor Williams have much truck with the part about meeting triumph and disaster just the same, though. Instead they must identify with the part which says, to paraphrase, “If you can...hold on when there is nothing in you except the will which says: 'Hold on!'...”
There wasn’t much more than that for Serena in that third set, when Dementieva was honing in on her faltering serve and the crowd sucked in its collective breath in anticipation of an upset and yet she held on. That will is a rather impressive attribute and it was too much for the Russian. "It was really, really tough,” said Williams in her BBC television interview immediately after the match."Elena's been playing really well and she's beaten me a few times. We gave the crowd a wonderful match so it was great."
Only the most ardent Venus Williams fan would say the same about her 6-1, 6-0 humiliation of Dinara Safina in the second semi-final of the day, in which Safina was so thoroughly beaten that the tournament’s top seed managed to win only eight points in the entire second set. Williams, a five-time champion, deserves huge credit for her record at Wimbledon which must see her counted as one of the greatest grass-court players of all time.
"This is my eighth final," the defending champion said in her post-match interview. "It's a dream come true to be here again and to have the opportunity to hold the plate up. Dinara is so talented and she's played so consistently in the last year. I went out there and was able to stay focused. I have so much experience on that court, it helps a lot."
If Venus had been drawn into the earlier histrionics of her sister’s match then it didn’t show against Safina. “It was so hard to watch that drama," she admitted. "But the hardest part is yet to come: to play Serena Williams."
Talking of drama, Roger Federer’s bid to break Pete Sampras’s record by winning his 15th grand slam title continues on Saturday when he takes on 31-year-old Tommy Haas, who had him at two sets down in the French Open last month before Federer hit back. Oh, and Andy Roddick is playing the British No.1, who is also called Andy. From here on in, drama comes as standard.