Williams Sisters To Meet in Semis; Yan Stuns Jankovic

The Canara Bank Bangalore Open '08 will be the setting for the first all-Williams clash on the Sony Ericsson WTA Tour for more than two years, after the Serena and Venus successfully negotiated quarterfinal encounters with Anastasia Rodionova and Vera Zvonareva on Friday. The other final four clash at the $600,000, Tier II event will see Patty Schnyder take on Jelena Jankovic's surprise conqueror, Yan Zi.
 
Venus, this week's No.2 seed, made a fantastic start to the match as she swiftly moved into a 5-1 lead. Yet the American was far from clinical in closing out the opener, squandering five set points and allowing Zvonareva to pull back to 5-4 before finally taking the set. An early flurry of service breaks in the second saw Venus move 4-1 ahead and this time there was to be no reprieve, with the former world No.1 closing out a 64 63 win in one hour, 29 minutes.
 
Younger sister Serena was even more impressive during her 61 64 dismissal of Rodionova. The No.3 seed raced through the opening set in a mere 27 minutes and despite a tenacious second set display from her Russian foe, captured the solitary service break in the second before securing her semifinal berth with a crisp volley on match point. It will be the fifteenth time the Williams sisters have met on Tour and entering Saturday evening's eagerly anticipated showpiece honours are even at seven wins apiece.
 
"I was feeling the ball a lot better than in my first match," Serena said, "and I think because of this I wasn't making nearly so many errors. I'm really excited about playing Venus in the semis. She's a really tough opponent, but it's going to be fun playing her. It's just a shame it couldn't be in the final."
 
Undoubtedly Day 5's biggest surprise came when Yan bundled out Jankovic in three sets. There was little to choose between the pair during the opening exchanges and the spectators on centre court had to wait until the eighth game to see Yan secure the first set's decisive and break. However, the 23-year-old Serb was not succumbing without a fight and levelled matters up in the second, with breaks of serve in the fourth and sixth games.
 
Unperturbed by this setback, Yan proceeded to conjure up her best tennis of the match in the decider, racing into a 4-0 lead before finally closing out a 63 36 63 win when Jankovic dumped a forehand into the net. 
 
The day's first match on court saw Schnyder recover from a set down to defeat the hard-hitting Akgul Amanmuradova on a final set tie-break. A single break of the Schnyder serve in the very first game of the match proved enough for the Uzbek to take a surprise one set lead, but her spell in the ascendancy did not last long as the No.4 seed hit back to establish a 5-2 lead in the second.
 
The drama was far from over though, as Schnyder contrived to fritter away this lead, before finally levelling the match up on her fifth set point. Amanmuradova had her chances in the final set and she was made to pay for twice throwing away valuable service breaks, as the world No.12 conjured up an immaculate tie-break performance to edge through, 46 64 76(1).
Friday also saw the first of the doubles semifinals at the Kingfisher Tennis Centre and there were no surprises as top seeds Chan Yung-Jan and Chuang Chia-Jung secured a place in their second final of the season with a comfortable 61 75 victory over Ekaterina Dzehalevich and Monica Niculescu. Meeting them in the championship round will be the winner of Saturday's all-Chinese affair between Peng Shuai and Sun Tiantian and Ji Chunmei and Sun Shengnan.

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