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If there were ever two completely contrasting semi-finals played in the 122-year history of Wimbledon, they took place on Thursday the 2nd of July 2009. Serena Williams saved a match point en route to beating Olympic champion Elena Dementieva in three enormously hard fought sets, elder sister Venus stepped onto court with Dinara Safina ten minutes later, and left within an hour booking a place in the final against Serena for the second straight year.

The numbers tell the story perfectly while the Serena - Elena slugfest lasted 237 points and 2 hours and 49 minutes, th e Venus-Dinara match was just 74 points and 51 minutes. Though you can't help but feel sorry for the two Russians, Elena because she deserved to be in the final just as much as Serena and for Dinara because you just don't want to see anyone massacred so badly, you can't but help but marvel at the two competitors the Williams family has produced. One thing is for sure, at the Williams dinner celebrations tonight, no one will care how they did it, just that the two best women tennis players of this generation will once again compete at the grandest stage of them all.

Here's how they made their final step of the journey possible...

First up was the no. 4 seed Elena Dementieva challenging two-time former champion Serena Williams for a place in her first Wimbledon final. After the girls traded early breaks of serve, the first set settled into a convenient pattern with both holding serve with relative ease. The first sign of trouble came on Dementieva's serve in the 8th game, but the brave Russian fought back from 0-40 down to hang on to her serve. The set teetered into a tiebreak which was neck-and-neck for the first 5 points. Dementieva then rattled off five points in a row to take a surprise lead in this contest.

Serena led the head to head 5-3 going into this match, but Elena has been giving Serena a hard time of late, winning three out of their last four contests, including that crucial match in the quarter-finals of the Olympics last year. Serena did get her own back at the semi-finals of the Australian Open earlier this year, and as expected came out guns blazing in the second set, breaking the Elena serve in the opening game and consolidating the break with a dominant hold.

But Elena was playing the tennis of her life today, her returns were rasping and her serve crisp. She hung in staying close in the second set, ensuring that Serena never really took the set away from her and broke back in the sixth game to level the set at three games apiece.
Dementieva held serve to edge ahead 4-3, and a double fault from Williams gave Elena a breakpoint to take a 5-3 lead. In one of two incredibly unfortunate points for the Russian, a forehand that looked wide from all angles was found to have kissed the edge of the line by less than a hair's breadth as Serena somehow stayed alive in the contest. She went on to save another breakpoint for 4-4.

After another Dementieva hold Williams served to stay in the match at 4-5. She did it with aplomb, hammering down a couple of aces on the way to holding to love. Serena put pressure on Elena's serve in the following game and forced two breakpoints of her own, Elena saved the first with a fantastic forehand winner, but another challenged line-call went William's way as Dementieva's shot hit the tape and bounced agonizingly wide by an even lesser margin than the previous call. Just then, you could tell the tennis gods had already decided her fate.

Elena fought back in the following game to set up a breakpoint of her own, and after a brilliantly set up unfortunately missed a sitter into an empty court. Serena needed no second invitation and as the serves started coming down even harder, she leveled the match at one set all.

A year ago Dementieva may have just collapsed giving in to inevitability, but the Elena on court tonight was all heart. She broke the Williams serve in the fourth game to take a 3-1 lead, but Serena was awesome in reply, breaking straight back. Games were competitive, but without any chances till the 10th game of the final set with Serena once again serving behind at 4-5, needing to hold to stay in the match.

At 30-30 Dementieva produced a fantastic forehand to earn herself a matchpoint on the Serena serve. After missing the first serve, Serena tossed in a high looping but excessively slow second. She followed a meek approach shot to the net, but Dementieva failed to come up with a passing shot. Serena made a shaky volley which kissed the tape on its way into Dementieva's half of the court. An ace and a few odd points later Dementieva's chance for a place in the Wimbledon final was gone, this time for good.

A couple of additional aces helped Serena out of a squeeze at 6-6, 0-30...and then in completely un-poetic fashion she broke the Dementieva serve one final time to lead 7-6. The lioness closed out the match on her first match point and produced a befitting roar. Despair for Dementieva, so near but yet so far...final score 6-7 (3), 7-5, 8-6 in the longest women's semi-final in Wimbledon history, and what fantastic tennis to go with it.

As dramatic as Serena's win was, Venus' clinical precision was a joy in itself. After holding her opening service game with ease, she broke the World no.1 to love in Dinara's opening game to register the first eight points of the match.

Dinara fought hard in the next couple of games, earning an immediate break back point which she was unable to convert, and then going up 40-15 on her own serve only to be broken again. Williams held for 5-0, but Dinara showed a lot of heart, racing onto the court at the end of the changeover, and holding serve for the first time in the contest. Williams however was not in any mood to slow down as she wrapped up the opening set 6-1 in just 27 minutes.

Sadly though for those of us who were expecting a different Safina in the second set, she just didn't show up. She won just four points in the opening four games and in 42 minutes, the score was already 6-1, 4-0. She would go on to win four more, but not enough to squeeze out a game. In a real embarrassing scoreline for the World No. 1, she was handed a breadstick and a bagel (1 & 0) by no doubt the greatest grass court player since Steffi Graf.

If Venus' performance tonight is anything to go by, even sister Serena should be quaking in her boots.

Click here to read a preview of the final

File Photograph Copyright: Elizabeth Molineux (Serena), Richard Thorpe (Venus)

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