It is going to be a busy Fourth of July for the all-conquering American Williams sisters after they coasted into another doubles final yesterday by thrashing the top seeds Liezel Huber and Cara Black 6-1, 6-2. The Californian siblings, who won the doubles for the third time a year ago, will be expecting to retain that title a few hours after fighting out the singles final this afternoon.
After overwhelming one pair of doubles specialists in Huber and Black, they should do the same to the Australian Sam Stosur and Rennae Stubbs who beat Spaniards Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual in yesterday's other semi-final. The third seeds defeated the second seeds in a much tighter contest, recovering from the loss of an opening set tie-break to go through 6-7, 6-4, 6-2 in 2hr and 17min.
In contrast, fourth-seeded Venus and Serena took the first five games of their semi-final to demoralise their opponents and needed only 61 minutes to secure their passage into another final. Venus said: "We've been so focused, and that's really been the key word in this event." Serena, the younger of the two sisters, added: "We've been playing doubles a lot, even though we don't play every tournament.
"We actually have that team camaraderie. We've been getting a lot of experience, and we know what to do doubles wise." The sisters will walk on court for the second time today after the men's double final which follows their women's singles final. Through to that final are the American brothers Bob and Mike Bryan who are also hoping for a Happy Independence Day To bring about those celebrations the Bryan twins, winners here in 2006 and runners-up on two other occasions, will have to dethrone the holders Daniel Nestor, of Canada, and Serbia's Nenad Zimonjic.
