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For a while it was the talk of tennis. Did the Williams family have agreements over who would win when Serena and Venus played each other?
The family always denied it and the controversy all but died when Serena started to get the better of her elder sister on a regular basis, but it reopened here yesterday when Elena Dementieva, looking ahead to tomorrow's all-Williams final, said: "For sure it's going to be a family decision."
The Women's Tennis Association later issued a statement by Dementieva attempting to clarify her comments, but the damage was done.
The third sister showdown final at Wimbledon was confirmed yesterday when Serena overcame China's Zheng Jie 6-2, 7-6, Venus having beaten Dementieva 6-1, 7-6 earlier in the afternoon.
The final line-up ensures an extension of the sisters' remarkable domination here, Venus having won four of the last eight All England Club championships and Serena two.
It will be the 16th competitive match between the sisters, 26-year-old Serena having won eight of their previous meetings, including seven of the last nine. They have met only three times since 2003, with Serena's three-set victory in Bangalore in March their first meeting for three years.
Since their 2001 US Open final, which Venus won in straight sets, Serena has won all five of their meetings in Grand Slam finals, including Wimbledon in 2002 and 2003. In winning her "Serena Slam" _ the four Grand Slam tournaments in succession from the 2002 French Open _ Serena beat Venus in all four finals.
The sisters and their father, Richard, who has been their coach from their earliest days, have always denied that the outcome of their matches has ever been decided by prior arrangement, but in 2001 an American publication alleged that Richard had ordered Serena to lose her match against Venus in the 2000 Wimbledon semifinals.
Dementieva also stirred the controversy with her comments after losing to Venus in the quarter-finals in Indian Wells in 2001, a result that set up a sister showdown in the semi-finals.
The Russian was asked for her prediction for the next match. "I don't know what Richard thinks about it," she said. "I think he will decide who's going to win tomorrow."
Asked to expand on her comment, Dementieva recalled a match the sisters had played in Miami two years earlier. "It was so funny," she said.
In the end minutes before the sisters were due to go on court for their Indian Wells semifinal it was announced that Venus had pulled out with injury. When Serena beat Kim Clijsters in the subsequent final she was regularly booed and the sisters have not played there since.
At her press conference yesterday Dementieva said: "I cannot imagine myself playing against someone from my family. It's really hard. For sure it's going to be a family decision."
She added: "When they are on the court they're trying to play, to fight. But in the end the family is more important to them and they keep a very nice relationship." Dementieva said she thought the final would be "more interesting" if it was not an all-Williams affair. "They know their game very well, so maybe there is not so much fight in the end."
In her later statement Dementieva said: "I do not think for one second that matches between Serena and Venus Williams are family decisions. What I meant was it is a unique situation for a family to be in to be playing for a Grand Slam title."
When Venus was asked whether there had been family discussions before their matches she said she found the question "pretty offensive" and added: "I'm extremely professional in everything that I do on and off the court. I contribute my best in my sport and I also have a ton of respect for myself and my family. So any mention of that is extremely disrespectful for who I am, what I stand for and my family."
On the court Serena had the tougher passage to the final. Zheng, the first Chinese player to reach a Grand Slam semifinal, hit her ground strokes with a power that defied her small frame and volleyed with the confidence of a player who has had great success in doubles. Zheng trailed 5-2 before the first of two rain breaks.
Serena held serve on the resumption to take the first set, but the second was much closer. Zheng broke to lead 4-2, only for Serena to hit back immediately. At 5-6 Zheng wasted a set point, hitting a backhand return into the net. She never led in the tie-break, which Serena won on a double fault.
Venus, who has not dropped a set here this year, has been in the better form over the last fortnight and maintained that with her defeat of Dementieva.
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Blood is thicker than silver
You could have been excused for forgetting that while Wimbledon squirmed over the possibility that another all-Williams women's final tomorrow might have all the competitive edge of a session of pass the parcel _ or in this case the silver _ in the family parlour, there was a still a live contender from outside the extraordinary empire made by the eccentric Richard, father of Venus and Serena.
A second final rematch here _ after two Serena victories so comfortable they inevitably provoked deep questions about the level of her sister's commitment _ was, after all, almost the last word in fait accompli when Venus rarely had to move out of first gear in disposing of the slow-starting Russian Elena Dementieva.
This became even more of a certainty when Serena at first toyed with her Chinese opponent Zheng Jie.
It was a scenario desperately low on the spontaneity and fire which we like to think is fundamental to great sport on a great stage. Women's tennis? This day, as it had been for most of the tournament, didn't come within a league of the status.
Not, that is, until Zheng began to play, in a way that sometimes her opponent does, a way that mocks the idea you can make a tennis star as you can a lawyer or a worker in porcelain.
When Zheng produced a series of quite beautiful backhand passes to stretch into a desperately tense tie-breaker in the second set, we were carried away from a set of preconceptions and a sense of doubt that will inevitably shroud the latest collision between sisters who already share 14 Grand Slam titles.
Serena clenched her fists when Zheng yielded finally. In her moment of triumph Venus did that funny little dance which sometimes seems not to be so much a celebration but something which has required at least a degree of choreography. And, of course, the paternal Svengali looked down, proud.
Venus reacted vehemently to suggestions from Dementieva _ later retracted in a way that suggested they may have borrowed briefly a few persuasive touches from the old KGB _ that tomorrow's result will be settled by "family decision". She said she would no longer discuss the matter because it was just too ridiculous.
However, it is not quite the reaction of those who witnessed her defeats by Serena here in 2002 and 2003. Already a double winner of the great prize, she submitted so gently that the questioning was so intense on the first occasion that it brought her to tears. Had the family council ordained the result? But, of course, it is probably more complicated than this.
The Williams family have enjoyed extraordinary success yet anyone who knows from where they come cannot be surprised that sometimes the face of their joy is a little clouded. An intense family who have a sense that they have beaten the most extraordinary odds will no doubt always keep something of themselves hidden.
This doesn't mean necessarily that they will believe a family accommodation will be reached. But it does suggest that fighting it out with your sister would be a strain on all but the most robotic of superstars.
They are wonderfully talented sportswomen who once again dominate the game which first greeted them as though they were visitors from another planet.
Now they have colonised the tennis universe they might hope for less complicated days. But nothing is so easy when the world watches to see how strenuously you will seek to destroy your sister.
- INDEPENDENT
