Venus survives scare

Venus Williams moved closer to another sister–sister final, stopping a strong challenge from Chanda Rubin for a 6–2, 4–6, 7–5 win at the US Open yesterday.

Williams, the two–time defending champion, joined top–seeded Serena Williams in the quarter-finals. Venus, seeded second, lost to her sister in the finals of the French Open and Wimbledon this year. That gave them a grip on three of the last four Grand Slam championship matches, starting with last year's US Open.

"Today just wasn't my best day," Williams said. "I had a lot of short balls that I just missed. It was definitely strange missing those shots, but I tried to stay calm."

Next up for Venus is two–time Open winner Monica Seles, who beat Martina Hingis of Switzerland 6–4, 6–2. Seles, seeded sixth, won the tournament in 1991 and 1992. Hingis, seeded ninth, has not fully recovered from ankle surgery in March.

The 14th–seeded Rubin nearly broke the Williams sisters' final–round monopoly with a determined performance in which she gained momentum early in the second set, lost it early in the third, then somehow came back from a 4–1 deficit to throw one final scare into Williams.

One casualty of her inconsistency was her 25–set winning streak at the Open, starting after she lost the first set of her 2000 semifinal to Hingis. "I wouldn't say, necessarily, you have to go out there and have very tough matches to play your best," Williams said, "Maybe it can make you work a little harder."

It was a gritty performance for Rubin, who underwent her second knee operation in two years and didn't play a tournament after that until May 6 in Berlin.

As well as she played against the more powerful Williams, she missed a great opportunity for a stunning upset with the score 5–5 in the third set and Williams serving. Rubin went up 15–40, giving her two break points. But she missed two forehands, tying the game, and Williams won the next two points to go up 6–5. "She's going to keep fighting and I feel I'm going to do the same thing," Rubin said. "In the end, it was just a little difference."

The last game was tied 30–30 before Williams won the next point. On match point, Williams hit a hard approach shot to the deep corner that got by Rubin's backhand.

With a look of relief, Williams waved to the crowd, tapped her tennis racket above her head, then made a forehand stroke with her right hand as she looked to her father Richard in the stands, indicating she was dissatisfied with it.

It is still been an outstanding year for Rubin, who lost in the fourth round at Wimbledon to Serena, then beat Serena en route to winning the Los Angeles Open early last month. "The goal was not to press too much and overplay" against Venus, Rubin said, "but I knew that I had to take some chances and I had to attack when I could." In the end, though, she couldn't keep Venus from reaching the quarter-finals for the 18th time in her last 20 Grand Slam tournaments.

Hingis won the tournament in 1997 and was seeded first the last five years. Then she had surgery. "It will take time to recover 100 percent physically and strength," she said after missing the Open semifinals for the first time in seven years.

Seles must reverse a 1–7 career record against Venus to reach that round. The win came last January at the Australian Open. "For me the key is, really, serves," Seles said. "Her serve is obviously very powerful. She'll hold the games easier than I will."

In the final game, Seles wasted four match points before winning with a hard backhand shot off a service return.

Fourth–seeded Lindsay Davenport, the 1998 champion, was the first player to reach the semi-finals when she beat unseeded Elena Bovina of Russia 3–6, 6–0, 6–2. Davenport has reached the semi-finals of all five events she's played since having arthroscopic knee surgery last January.

There was nearly an upset on the cards as Bovina took the first set comfortably, but Davenport stormed throught the final two sets for the loss of only two games to show that she is clearly a contender for the title. The Russian, who is ranked 61st in the world, was playing in her first Grand Slam quarter-final. The 19-year-old reached the third round at the US Open last year.

"She kind of overpowered me a bit in the beginning. I wasn't used to someone serving that hard," Davenport said. "It was a bit of a wake-up call, took me a while to get into it."

Davenport, who has 37 career singles titles and finished 2001 atop the rankings, has not won a tournament in 2002. The 26-year-old, who was sidelined from November to July with right knee injury, is playing in her first Grand Slam of the year. "I had to fight really hard to turn the match around, turn it in my favour," Davenport said.

In her first four tournaments back - all on hard courts - the world No 10 went to two finals and two semi-finals.

"Today I felt I hit the ball great. Even though I lost that first set, I had a few errors, but I felt it was the best I hit the ball this tournament," said Davenport, who spent nine weeks on crutches after her operation in January, then endured months of rehabilitation that included eight hours a day using a machine that repeatedly bent and straightened her right knee.

Davenport, has also won Wimbledon and the Australian Open titles, also changed her diet and has appeared fit in her four victories here.