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Serena outlasts Dementieva to reach fifth Wimbledon final

Thu 2nd, July 2009

Wimbledon, England (Sports Network) - In one of the best women's matches played here in some time, two-time champion Serena Williams snuck past Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva on Thursday to reach her fifth Wimbledon final.

The second-seeded former world No. 1 Williams outlasted fourth-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 8-6 in Thursday's thrilling first women's semifinal at the venerable All England Club. The reigning Australian Open and U.S. Open titlist Williams also topped Dementieva in a semifinal at the Australian Open back in January.

Serena will meet top-ranked Russian Dinara Safina or her third-seeded sister Venus in Saturday's finale. Venus beat Serena in last year's championship match here, as Venus captured her second straight and fifth overall Wimbledon championship.

This marks the first time since 2006 that all four top-seeded women reached the semifinals at a Grand Slam event. Serena and Venus are former world No. 1s, which means three of the four semifinalists have held the coveted top ranking.

Serena and Dementieva traded breaks in the first two games of the match on Day 10 and Williams appeared on the verge of another break in the eighth game with a 40-15 lead. Dementieva, however, dug out of the hole to hold serve and the set eventually went to a tiebreak on yet another hot, sunny day here.

A pair of Williams errors gave Dementieva the advantage in the tiebreak. The American ripped a forehand wide and netted another forehand on consecutive points to give the Russian a 6-3 edge. Dementieva quickly gave one back with a double fault and misfired on her next serve, but Williams blasted a forehand wide on the second serve to give Dementieva the opening set.

In an equally-as-tight second set, Dementieva eventually had opportunities to break Serena to knot the stanza at 6-all, especially on one particular point when the athletic Russian swatted a two-handed backhand out despite having a wide-open court. Serena would wind up with a hold to force a deciding third set.

In the dramatic final set, Dementieva appeared to assume some control when Serena double-faulted and then netted a forehand to give the Russian a break and a 3-1 lead. But Dementieva was unable to consolidate the break, as her American counterpart broke right back and then held her serve to level the third at 3-3.

The two stars then stayed on serve over the next several games, trading monster forehands and backhands from the baselines. Following a Dementieva hold, the Russian got herself to a match point in the 10th game of the stanza, but a gutsy Serena staved it off by following up a net approach with a clutch backhand volley winner.

Serena wound up with a hold to make it 5-all, and three games later, the powerful American recorded a huge service break with a backhand winner for a 7-6 edge.

In the next game, Serena set-up her first match point with a forehand winner and converted on it when Dementieva misfired wide with one final backhand after 2 hours, 49 minutes of spectacular tennis on the famed Centre Court.

Serena launched 20 aces among her 45 winners, while Dementieva recorded 27 winners and had her serve broken five times. The two-time major runner-up from Russia settled for three breaks in the gut-wrenching setback.

The 27-year-old Dementieva reached the French and U.S. Open finals in 2004 and won the gold medal in Beijing last year. She has lost in the Wimbledon semis the last two years, with last year's setback coming against the Wimbledon queen Venus.

The 10-time major champion Serena will now appear in her 14th career Grand Slam final (10-3). She captured Wimbledon titles in 2002 and 2003 by beating her big sister in the finals and was the runner-up here in 2004 and last year.

The 27-year-old Serena owns 33 career singles titles, including this year's Aussie Open crown.

The mighty Williams sisters have combined for seven of the last nine Wimbledon titles. Venus is 5-2 in seven Wimbledon finals this decade.

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