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Tennis
The Championships Wimbledon
Venus strolls into final
Ap, Wimbledon

American Venus Williams is all smiles during her Wimbledon semifinal against Russia's Elena Dementieva in London yesterday. Photo: AFPDefending champion Venus Williams beat Elena Dementieva 6-1, 7-6 (3) to advance to the Wimbledon final Thursday, setting up a potential championship matchup with sister Serena.Venus Williams, a four-time Wimbledon winner, overpowered the fifth-seeded Russian in the first set and then prevailed in an error-filled tiebreaker to improve her record to 7-0 in semifinals at the All England Club.Her opponent in Saturday's final could be two-time champion Serena, who was next up on Centre Court to face 133rd-ranked Chinese wild-card entrant Zheng Jie.It would be the first all-Williams final since 2003 when Serena beat Venus in the championship match for the second year in a row.“I am dying for S. Williams to get through,” said Venus, who will be going for her seventh Grand Slam title. “This is my seventh final here and I'm looking forward to playing Serena in our third final, and I'm going to be rooting her on.”Dementieva, playing in her first Wimbledon semifinal, looked nervous and was completely overmatched in the first set by Williams' sheer power and pace, but settled down and made it competitive in the second.After Dementieva knocked a forehand into the net to end the 1 hour, 42 minute match, Venus skipped and hopped up and down with joy.Venus hasn't dropped a set in five matches.“It's so exciting,” she said. “I lost serve once every match. That's pretty impressive, too. I'm looking forward to that final.”Venus' attacking game produced 28 winners and 19 unforced errors. The more defensive Dementieva had 12 winners and 22 errors.Venus, the biggest server in women's tennis, averaged 118 mph on first serves and had a fastest serve of 125 mph. Dementieva, known as one of the weakest servers in the game, averaged only 102 mph on first serves.Dementieva was highly animated throughout the match, shrieking at the top of her voice and spinning around in frustration after errors.Venus broke immediately to open the match, saved four break points in the next game and moved to a 4-0 lead before Dementieva finally got on the board after 29 minutes of play. The Russian saved four break points in a game that went to deuce six times, but Venus quickly closed out the set, flying high for a putaway forehand volley smash.Venus continued a run of four straight games and seemed ready to pull away. But Dementieva raised her level, broke for 2-1 on a forehand net cord and stayed even until 6-6.Dementieva faded badly in the tiebreaker, however. After a service winner from Venus on the first point, all the next nine points ended in errors. Leading 3-2, Dementieva reeled off three straight forehand errors, a backhand mistake and then another forehand error on match point.