Queens of SW19 close in on final

SAME old vicious serve, same old growl, same old dainty twirl for the crowd as she stood over her victim. It was as if the bludgeoning, dancing contradiction that is Venus Williams had never been away.

There she was, quick-stepping around No 1 court after consoling Yaroslava Shvedova, the Kazakh long-shot smashed by the score of 7-6, 6-2. Then there was a wave to family members who must have assumed only one sister would be left standing by now.

Instead, they still have the original in Venus and the best in Serena, two ageing superstars in the semi-finals of Wimbledon and fighting their own battles against time. Serena is still by far the best in the game and might soon be known as the best there ever was, and yet her big sister’s achievements this fortnight are the more astonishing.

As Venus put it herself: ‘If you are Serena Williams, this happens a lot. But as Venus Williams, this is an awesome day.’

Six years have passed since Venus last reached the semi-finals of a Slam, a serious time away from the deep end for a player who dominated her sport before being muscled into the shadows for the better part of two decades by her sibling.

In tennis terms, she’s an old woman now at 36 years of age, the most ‘experienced’ of the 128 who started out in the draw.

In physical terms, she is an ageing athlete dealing each day with the fog of an incurable, energy-sapping auto-immune disease, Sjogren’s syndrome. The diagnosis came in 2011, by which point she had won 43 titles, including seven Slams. Since it was made, she has won only six titles and no majors.

She is still good enough to hold the eighth seeding — and is still good enough to make only 12 unforced errors in a match and hit serves of 115mph — but perspective for what she is doing should come from the fact that her most recent Slam was won here eight years ago.

Williams contemplated all of Unstoppable: the Williams sisters followed up their singles success by combining to defeat Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka 6-4, 6-3 in the women’s doubles third round that last night as she tried to be philosophical about the years of illness, struggle and the mental adjustments an elite athlete must make when their tools stop working.

‘The road was six years,’ she said. ‘They go by fast, thankfully. I don’t have any regrets about anything that’s taken place in between.

‘It’s been a journey but it’s made me stronger. You can’t change what happens. The most difficult part of the journey is not being in control because when you’re an athlete you’re used to being in control, being able to work for anything. Not being able to do that is a challenge.

‘This has been my life. What can I say? I wouldn’t wish it any other way. It’s been my life and it’s been a beautiful life. It’s been a great experience. It’s been everything.’

With that, she was asked if retiring had ever crossed her mind.

‘Retiring is the easy way out,’ she said bluntly. ‘I don’t have time for easy. Tennis is just hard.’

And there, in a nutshell, was a mindset that has driven two sisters through their careers and landed them on an apparent collision course for the final.

Serena will face the unseeded Elena Vesnina, the world No 50, while Venus has the tougher challenge against the fourth seed, Angelique Kerber of Germany.

There are questions to be asked about the continued lack of durable challengers in the women’s game, given how Serena has clattered all comers since her first Slam in 1999.

But that would also take credit from a unique personality that is just one Slam away from matching Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22.

Her age, 34, is a natural invitation to doubt how long she will go on for, as are the defeats she has suffered in the finals of the past two Slams.

Yet there was no indication yesterday that she has limited mileage remaining in her legs, as she followed her 6-4, 6-4 battering of Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova by joining Venus to win their third-round doubles tie.

It is ominous for the rest that Serena has improved since wobbling in the second round against Christina McHale.

‘I’m feeling good,’ she said. ‘When I came out, I knew Venus was up 5-1 in the second set and then I saw the result on the court scoreboard.

‘She has so much perseverance and is such a fighter. It is so great. But I knew I had a tough opponent and one thing I have learnt this year is just to focus on the match.’

Any probing on the subject of her legacy has been met with surly answers this fortnight, as was a clumsily worded question at the weekend that inadvertently suggested Serena was a ‘has been’. Perhaps the topic of her place in the game means more than she wants to let on.

To that end, a seventh crown here would be the kind of concussive statement that Serena has served up throughout her career.

She revels in that kind of drama. It is, therefore, a delightful, unexpected coincidence that the final obstacle might be her own sister.