Defending champion Venus Williams moved a step closer to her fifth Wimbledon singles title Tuesday, beating Tamarine Tanasugarn in straight sets to reach the semifinals and close in on another potential championship matchup with sister Serena. Venus downed the 31-year-old Tanasugarn 6-4, 6-3 on Court 1 to extend her career record over the Thai player to 7-0. The seventh-seeded American, who hasn't dropped a set all tournament, was limping slightly at the end of the match with a hamstring problem. “It feels a little bit tight,” she said. “I'll be fine. I'm a big girl. I can deal with it.” Venus will next face No. 5 Elena Dementieva, who wasted a 5-1 lead and two match points in the second set before beating fellow Russian Nadia Petrova 6-1, 6-7 (6), 6-3 to reach her first Wimbledon semifinal. Two-time champion Serena Williams, seeded No. 6, was scheduled on Center Court later against 19-year-old Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland. The other matchups No. 18 Nicole Vaidisova vs. China's Zheng Jie. The Williams sisters are in opposite halves of the draw and could meet in Saturday's final. The two have been twice before in the Wimbledon final, with Serena winning both in 2002 and ‘03 “That would be amazing if we both were in the final,” Venus said. “I have to take it one more step and keep playing power tennis.” The 60th-ranked Tanasugarn, playing in her first Grand Slam quarterfinal, pushed Venus as hard as she could but didn't have enough to cope with her power game. Venus served eight aces and had one serve at 127 mph, while Tanasugarn had no aces and had an average first-serve speed of just 90 mph. Tanasugarn fashioned 10 break points, but converted only once. The key game was the sixth of the first set, when Williams saved six break points - mostly on Tanasugarn errors - and finished with a 126 mph (203 kph) service winner to hold for 4-2. Dementieva managed to prevail in an error-strewn match on Centre Court in which both players struggled with nerves. Dementieva, runner-up at the French Open and US Open in 2004, seemed in total command after winning five straight games to take the first set and going up 5-1 in the second. But, in keeping with her reputation, she got tight and let her opponent back in the match. It was reminiscent of the French Open quarterfinals, where Dementieva was up a set and 5-2 against Dinara Safin but blew a match point and lost in three sets. “I was tight,” she said. “I was so close to finishing in two sets. I don't know what happened. Maybe I was thinking about the French Open quarterfinals. I was trying to stay positive and aggressive but it was so hard.” Twice Dementieva served for the match and was broken as Petrova climbed back to force a tiebreaker, where she saved two match points at 6-4 and 6-5. After Dementieva went up 4-0 in the third set, Petrova closed to 5-3 before Dementieva finally served out the match, finishing with a crosscourt forehand winner and falling to her knees in celebration. Monday's fourth-round play at the All England Club produced more upsets at the top of the women's seedings, but also offered more convincing wins from the champions and title contenders. No. 4 Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open champion, lost 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 to 19-year-old Agnieszka Radwanska. The highest women's seeded player left is No. 5 Elena Dementieva, who cruised to a 6-2, 6-1 win over Shahar Peer. No. 2-ranked Nadal overcame an injury scare in the second game of the match and beat Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-3, 6-1. Nadal's quarterfinal opponent will be Britain's Andy Murray, who came from two sets down to beat No. 8 Richard Gasquet 5-7, 3-6, 7-6 (3), 6-2, 6-4 in a Center Court match that ended in near-darkness at 9:30 P.M. (2030 GMT). No. 10-seeded Marcos Baghdatis, a semifinalist in 2006 and quarterfinalist last year, squandered three match points in the fifth set. The Cypriot lost 5-7, 6-2, 3-6, 7-6 (4), 8-6 to Feliciano Lopez. The Spaniard, down 0-40 at 4-5, came up with big serves on all three points to avoid defeat. Also advancing among the men were former No. 1 Marat Safin, who beat No. 13 Stanislas Wawrinka in four sets; Rainer Schuettler, the oldest remaining player in the draw at age 32, who downed Janko Tipsarevic in four sets; and 145th-ranked Arnaud Clement, who beat 19-year-old Marin Cilic in straight sets to become the lowest-ranked player to reach the men's quarters here since No. 198 Alexander Popp in 2003.
