Venus sees off game Thai's challenge to reach familiar territory

VENUS Williams reached her seventh Wimbledon semi-final in nine years on Tuesday, but not with quite the ease that had been expected. Thai veteran Tamarine Tanasugarn stretched the defending champion for 95 minutes, and the 6-4, 6-3 scoreline was no measure of the closeness of the match. Tanasugarn appears not to boast any comparable weapons, and certainly lacks experience in the latter stages of grand slams. Williams is seeded only seventh, but is the title favourite, understandably, as she already has won four crowns here. Yet Tanasugarn held her own for large stretches of the biggest match of her career, after needing to qualify at the Australian Open just six months ago. At 31, Tanasugarn was the oldest of the eight women's quarter-finalists, and her "wow, wow, wow" reaction to upsetting second seed Jelena Jankovic... [read full story]