Williams sisters power into final

This year's women's Wimbledon final will again be a family affair after champion Venus Williams and her sister Serena clinched straight sets victory in yesterday's semi-finals.

Venus booked her way to her seventh Wimbledon final with a matter-of-fact 6-1 7-6 victory over Russian Elena Dementieva.

The American, aiming for her fifth Wimbledon title, launched an array of blistering serves and ferocious groundstrokes at the 26-year-old fifth seed and allowed her to hold serve just once in the opening set.

Standing inside the baseline to receive the Dementieva serve, Venus attacked every point and came up to the net to unleash an aggressive overhead shot across the court to take the first set.

After Williams broke at the start of the second, it looked like another one-sided set was on the cards but Dementieva suddenly seemed to find a will to fight and managed a rare break of the Williams serve in the third game after a lucky netcord.

The Russian, appearing in the last four at Wimbledon for the first time, was buoyed by the breakthrough and seemingly lifted by a Centre Court crowd who were cheering on the underdog.

She surprised the 28-year-old Williams with some excellent passing shots and seemed to have got better at dealing with the often more than 120 mph serves that kept hurtling towards her.

The second set was more of a contest and Dementieva deservedly found herself in a tiebreak, although she was then let down by errors that handed Williams three match points.

The experienced six-times grand slam winner needed just one of them to pounce and seal the match with a powerful forehand.

Venus said she was kicking herself for letting her opponent back into the match but that ultimately she was delighted to be back in a final.

"I had the early break, I was a little disappointed that I didn't hold on to that," she said, adding that she was pleased to have come through this far without dropping a set.

"It's so exciting. I'm looking forward to that final."

Tomorrow she will face her younger sister Serena who beat Chinese wildcard Zheng Jie 6-2 7-6.

Serena, who had won their only previous meeting in the first round here in 2004, won the first set in 28 minutes after a first break of serve in the opening game and a 37-minute rain delay with the score 5-2.

Zheng, 24, made a dramatic improvement in the second set which reached 5-5, after an exchange of breaks in mid-set and the Chinese leading 40-30 on her serve when there was a second rain delay lasting 82 minutes.

The set went into a tiebreak after Serena saved a break point in the 12th game. Serena set up match point with a thundering delivery then took it when Zheng double faulted.

"I was ready to go three sets but I felt I didn't want to so I got in some big serves," Serena said.

"I'm happy to be back in a grand slam final, I love it."

Asked if she and her sister would discuss tomorrow's final, she added: "(Venus) is a tough opponent, the toughest I've played here (but) we're going to stop talking to each other until the final."

Men's quarter-final: Sch-uettler bt Clement 6-3 5-7 7-6 6-7 8-6. Today's semi-finals: Federer vs Safin; Nadal vs Schuettler.