KEY POINTS:
A little-known Frenchwoman destroyed world women's tennis number one Justine Henin's Wimbledon dream yesterday.
Marion Bartoli produced the game of her life to humble a shell-shocked Henin 1-6 7-5 6-1 and march into her first grand slam final against Venus Williams.
As Bartoli sealed the Belgian's fate and
lapped up the applause from 13,000 cheering fans, a forlorn Henin had to cope with her earliest exit from a grand slam since 2005.
The result was the biggest upset in the sport since Jelena Dokic defeated then world number one Martina Hingis in the first round at Wimbledon in 1999.
When Henin arrived at the All England Club, her run to the final had almost been a forgone conclusion, with the real race being to see who would face her in the showpiece match today.
But a player who had won only four matches at Wimbledon before this year dashed Henin's hopes of winning the only grand slam trophy missing from her collection.
Williams also showed her appetite for humbling higher ranked opponents by beating sixth-seeded Serb Ana Ivanovic 6-2 6-4.
The 31st-ranked American has also gobbled up second seed Maria Sharapova and fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova this week and with Henin's exit, she will be the overwhelming favourite to win her fourth title here.
The rare sight of the sun at this year's Wimbledon brought out the ruthless streaks in Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.
After days of unrelenting rain at the grasscourt grand slam, the world's two best players continued to play catch up and stood only one match away from a final collision.
A merciless Nadal flexed his well toned muscles for a 7-6 6-4 6-2 quarter-final victory over Czech Tomas Berdych.
Triple French Open champion Nadal, who did not finish his third round three-day marathon until Wednesday, became the first man to book his place in the semis.
He must have been rubbing his hands in glee as his semi-final opponent, Novak Djokovic, was engaged in an exhausting five-hour thriller before eventually subduing Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis 7-6 7-6 6-7 4-6 7-5.
World number one Federer had enjoyed an unexpected six-day holiday after his fourth round opponent Tommy Haas withdrew injured.
Perhaps feeling a little rusty, he dropped his first set of these championships but that did not stop the Swiss from streaking to a 7-6 3-6 6-1 6-3 win over Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero.
Berdych ran into a little bit of trouble as soon as he walked on to Centre Court as one of the logos on his baseball cap was deemed to breach tournament rules on overt sponsorship.
The umpire took care of the problem by scratching off the offending mark but it turned out to the least of 21-year-old's worries and he was easily outclassed by Nadal.
A clay-loving Spaniard playing in his first Wimbledon quarters would not usually have provided much of a threat to Federer's progress towards a 13th consecutive grand slam semi-final.
But a gusting wind and some pin-point groundstrokes from Ferrero threw the Swiss off course in the second set before he restored calm to chalk up his 32nd consecutive win at the All England Club.
More significantly for 25-year-old Federer, he is only two matches away from matching Bjorn Borg's feat of five successive Wimbledon crowns.
If there was a prize for endurance, Serbian Djokovic, who set up a repetition of last month's French Open semi-final against Nadal, would already have walked away with it.
Not only has the fourth seed been on court for nearly 17 hours during his five matches to date at these championships, he has also won eight sets in tiebreaks.
- REUTERS
