The Williams Sisters To Meet In Bangalore Semifinals

The Williams Sisters To Meet In Bangalore Semifinals
By Tripp Mateschitz, Lawn Tennis Correspondent, Posted: Saturday, March 8, 2008 7:20am CST USA

The Williams Sisters To Meet In India Semifinals,
Venus Williams, Serena Williams Bangalore Open 2008

Serena Williams and Venus Williams

BANGALORE--(lawntennismag.com) Wimbledon champion and second seed Venus Williams of the USA has advanced to today's Bangalore Open semifinals at Bangalore, India. Venus will face her sister and third seeded Serena Williams in the second of two women's semfinals. The first semifinal begins at 7:30am CST USA, and we estimate the Williams match to begin at an estimated 9:00am CST USA.

"I’m really excited about playing Venus in the semis,” Serena Williams said. “She’s a really tough opponent, but it’s going to be fun playing her. It’s just a shame it couldn’t be in the final.”

Both Williams sisters exited this year's first grand slam the Australian Open, earlier than we may have thought they would. Venus Williams lost in the quarterfinals to Ana Ivanovic of Serbia and before this week had lost three of her last four WTA Tour matches. Serena Williams failed to defend her Australian Open title as she too lost in the quarterfinals to a Serbian, Jelena Jankovic. This week marks only Serena's second tournament played of the year as she took a break due to dental surgery.

And so we can say each Williams sister will want to win today to advance to Sunday's final and also in order to reestablish some momentum for this year. Head to head Venus is tied with Serena 7-7 and with Venus winning their last meeting at the 2005 US Open 7-6(7-5), 6-2.

The all Williams semifinal match is not scheduled to be shown on television in the USA, but you can follow the scores live here and get information about how to watch the match free online on the internet.

The Williams sisters matches are tough matches to call basically since their games are so similar either player could win on any given day. However I'm picking Venus to win today as I think she may be hitting her first serves and groundstrokes more consistently than Serena has this week. I do think the first set will be very important and the player who can start better will be at a huge advantage.

Venus is a sometime slow starter and sometimes may take a few games to get warmed up. But if Serena is playing well, she will not allow Venus to recover from any slow start. Also look to see if either player will move forward to finish the points at the net.

The forehand can be suspect from either Venus or Serena. But it's not as if you can hit the ball there and be okay. Either player can hit winners from her forehand, but she can also make a handful of forehand errors as well. Which is how Venus will win today: keeping her error count low and winner count high.

"I’m really excited about playing Venus in the semis," Serena Williams said. "She’s a really tough opponent, but it’s going to be fun playing her. It’s just a shame it couldn’t be in the final."