Venus Williams overpowers Radwanska 6-1, 6-2 to reach Wimbledon semifinals

Venus Williams powers into Wimbledon semifinals

WIMBLEDON, England — Five-time champion Venus Williams overpowered Agnieszka Radwanska 6-1, 6-2 on Tuesday to reach the Wimbledon semifinals and move a step closer to another possible championship showdown with sister Serena.

Williams, seeking her third straight Wimbledon title, outhit the 14th-ranked Pole from all parts of the court and proved again that she is the dominant female player on grass.

“Do I feel invincible?” Williams said. “I’d like to say yes, but I really do work at it.”

Williams had her left leg taped up again but showed no weakness at all as she ripped 29 winners — compared to six for Radwanska — in a match that lasted just 68 minutes on a sunbaked Court 1.

“I can’t complain,” Williams said. “I’m in the semifinals of Wimbledon, right where I want to be. I just need to take another step forward.”

Williams will next face top-ranked Dinara Safina, who overcame 15 double-faults and beat German teenager Sabine Lisicki 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-1 to reach the Wimbledon semifinals for the first time.

“I was Santa Claus on the court, serving so many double-faults,” said Safina, who served three straight doubles in one game in the third set.

In the bottom half of the draw, No. 4 Elena Dementieva beat Italy’s Francesca Schiavone 6-2, 6-2 to set up a semifinal encounter with two-time champion Serena Williams or Victoria Azarenka.

Venus Williams raced to a 5-0 lead against Radwanska, and finished off the first set with back-to-back aces. Williams dropped only two of 18 points on serve in the set.

“That first set for me was almost perfect,” Williams said.

Radwanska managed to win the first two games of the second set, but Williams regained command and ran off six straight to finish the match, ending with a clean forehand winner.

“She was serving and hitting the ball so strong,” Radwanska said. “Her tennis is so powerful. Today she was playing so good, it was very hard to do anything. If she will play like this, she will (win) one more time this tournament.”

Serena Williams was playing on Centre Court against 19-year-old Victoria Azarenka of Belarus. The sisters have met in three Wimbledon finals, including last year, and are on course for a fourth title meeting.

“I would love it to be a Williams final, and so would she,” Venus said. “That would be great.”

Venus Williams is trying to become the first woman since Steffi Graf in 1991-93 to win three Wimbledon titles in a row.

Only once in the last nine years has there been a Wimbledon women’s final that didn’t feature at least one of the Williams sisters. The sisters were the only two Grand Slam winners left in the women’s field — Serena has 10 major titles and Venus seven.

“We are definitely the front-runners in tennis as far as being some of the best players out there,” Venus said. “I just think that the style of game that Serena and I play, that particular style we play better than the other women.”

Safina, who has risen to No. 1 in the world despite never having won a Grand Slam title, struggled against the 19-year-old Lisicki. The Russian had to come from behind after double-faulting to lose the first set tiebreaker, smashing her racket to the turf and drawing a warning from the chair umpire.

Safina was down 3-2 on serve in the second set, but got the one break in the seventh game to force a third set. The 41st-ranked Lisicki received treatment on her right calf after going down 4-1 in the third. In the next game, Safina was up 40-0 before serving three straight double-faults. She still managed to hold and then broke for the match.

“I was tough mentally, that was the key today,” Safina said.

Dementieva, meanwhile, grabbed a 5-0 lead in the first set against the 43rd-ranked Schiavone and converted both of her break points in the second to seal the win in 66 minutes.

Dementieva also reached the Wimbledon semifinals last year. She is still looking for her first major title after being runner-up at both the French Open and U.S. Open in 2004.

The men’s quarterfinals are set for Wednesday with five-time champion Roger Federer against 6-foot-10 Croat Ivo Karlovic; No. 3 Andy Murray vs. Spanish wild card Juan Carlos Ferrero; 2002 champion Lleyton Hewitt vs. two-time finalist Andy Roddick; and No. 3 Novak Djokovic vs. Tommy Haas.

Temperatures topped 90 degrees on Tuesday, with no need to close the roof on Centre Court.

On Monday, the retractable roof was closed for the first time and Murray beat Stanislas Wawrinka in a five-setter that finished at 10:39 p.m. — later than any match in Centre Court history. Previously, no Centre Court match had lasted later than 9:35 p.m.