Venus aiming to glide into semi-finals

Published on Tuesday 1 July 2008 10:28

DEFENDING champion Venus Williams was set to continue her Centre Court exile today after her quarter-final clash with Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn was scheduled for Court One.

Both Williams sisters and No.2 seed Jelena Jankovic expressed their displeasure after their fourth-round matches were played on outside courts yesterday. Venus and Serena won their matches on Court Two, but Jankovic did not fare so well on Court 18, losing in straight sets to Tanasugarn.

While Jankovic, who had wanted a late start to allow her more time to recover from an injury, said the scheduling made "no sense", Venus, who is now the favourite for the title, was reluctant to make too big an issue of her snub. But when it was put to her the likes of Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal were always on Centre or Court One, while the top women were being moved, she replied: "You said it. It's true."

Serena was more forthright, saying: "Initially I thought, 'Okay, is this the right schedule?' I thought maybe there was a mistake."

Her clash with Agnieszka Radwanska will be on Centre Court today. Tournament referee Andrew Jarrett said the second Monday, on which all remaining players in the men's and women's draws play, is always tough to schedule.

He added: "In the case of the ladies' matches it is important to consider they will be playing the following day in the quarter-finals. For this reason they are scheduled to play earlier in the day. We understand that every player's next match is their most important. Any order of play always tries to reflect that."

Serena can have no complaints about the scheduling for her quarter-final against the 14th seed, who saw off Svetlana Kuznetsova in three sets yesterday.

Radwanska has already had a close look at Serena in this tournament having seen her sister, Urszula, lose to Williams in the second round. "I saw a bit of my sister's match against Serena, so I know what I have to do," she said. "I have to play aggressive."

That game will be preceded by an all-Russian affair between Elena Dementieva and Nadia Petrova.

The fourth quarter-final sees wild card Jie Zheng of China take on Czech 18th seed Nicole Vaidisova.