| Friday, 4 July 2008 Written by Sally Easton Sisters Serena and Venus Williams look pretty invincible on their own and together they never really allowed the Franco-Australian alliance of Nathalie Dechy and Casey Dellacqua to get a foothold in their doubles semi-final. The 11th seeds, no spurious connection with Venus’ fashion label intended, took the match 6-3, 6-3 in a mere 62 minutes. Though there was a smattering of service breaks on both sides, the Williamses raised their game at the right moment so it was not their service being broken in the latter parts of the sets. Plan A was clear. The sisters’ sole strategy was to dominate the net. Full stop. The lob was going to be needed a lot by Dechy and Dellacqua, and though the unseeded pair delivered a bevy of deliciously poised lobs, they could not make it pay enough times. On the receiving end, the sisters swayed from foot to foot in perfectly timed synchronisation, as though to hypnotise their opponents. Even when 29-year-old Dechy and 23-year-old Dellacqua did have Serena on the back foot, she made fearsome returns from the baseline to help her partnership take an unassailable 5-3 lead in the first set. Nanosecond-reflexes by 26-year-old Serena at the net enabled her to dig up balls from between her toes, reach for and direct shots to empty patches of grass. Another break in the important seventh game and the sisters swung into the final without having dropped as set. There they will meet Lisa Raymond, also of the US, and Samantha Stosur of Australia, the 16th seeds who beat Cara Black and Liezel Huber 6-3, 6-3 in the other semi.
| Court 1 - Ladies' Doubles - Semifinals | |
|
| 
Match Statistics
