Sisters get their acts together to post final warning

Serena Williams would not bet against herself winning the Wimbledon title for the third time in a row and she would not bet against another all-Williams final either.

Serena and Venus both came into the Championships extremely short of matches after injury and illness, with Serena having been out of action for almost a year, and the first two rounds were tricky for both.

Venus was taken all the way to 8-6 in the third set before seeing off 40-year-old Kimiko Date-Krumm in the second round and Serena dropped sets to both Aravane Rezai and Simona Halep.

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The third round showed both in ominous form, though, with Venus thrashing Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez 6-0 6-2 and Serena making light work of a potentially dangerous opponent in Maria Kirilenko to win 6-3 6-2.

The seventh seed is the one all the other players will be most wary of, but she thinks Venus deserves to be considered a real title contender once again.

Serena said of the five-time champion: “She seems way more confident and she’s playing way more confident. That’s obviously in turn inspiring me. She’s working really hard and doing really well.”

Venus will have the chance to exact revenge on the player who knocked her out in the quarter-finals last year when she meets Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova in the fourth round today.

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Serena, meanwhile, looks to have a tough assignment against ninth seed Marion Bartoli, who is showing her best form since a surprise run to the final at Wimbledon four years ago, when she lost to Venus.

The Frenchwoman reached the semi-finals at the French Open and then won the title in Eastbourne, but her heavy schedule has been compounded by tough matches in the last two rounds, including a fightback to beat Flavia Pennetta 9-7 in the third set on Saturday.

Bartoli knows she will be up against it, saying: “With Serena or Venus, you have to step up, especially here at Wimbledon. She (Serena) is the ultimate competitor. You never count her out of a match.

“I saw her in Eastbourne and it was the first match she played in almost 12 months, and she was 6-1 down in the first set and somehow she found a way to win against Pironkova, who is a very good grass-court player.

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“She always finds a solution. She always plays her best when it matters the most. And obviously the record she has here, and it is the same for Venus, shows what great champions they are.

“Of course it will be the ultimate challenge for me, but I think if I just have the same attitude and same spirit, no matter what the results will be, I can still be proud of myself.”

Bartoli set up the encounter after ordering her parents to leave her third-round match.

Bartoli dropped the opening set against Italian Pennetta on Court 14, and then insisted her mother and father leave their courtside seats.

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She went on to win 5-7 6-4 9-7 and had no regrets about asking to be left alone to take on Pennetta.

“I was so tired and exhausted that really I had to express my emotions somehow,” said Bartoli.

“I saw them right after the match, my parents, and they understood completely. It was not against them. It was just that we played a very long first set, and I was exhausted and I was tired and I was feeling worse and worse.

“I need to get that frustration out, so I showed it that way.

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“I could have broken a racquet. It would have been the same. I think it was just a matter of releasing the frustration and starting again.

“I normally never act like that.I think they understood me pretty well being my parents for 26 years.”

Bartoli could not explain precisely what she told her parents.

“I don’t remember exactly because I played for three-and-a-half hours, and at the end I could barely see the ball. I don’t remember exactly what I said, but I think I was really clear.”

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Father Walter coaches Bartoli, and had to watch on a small screen. “He told me he watched on TV, and he said it was the best match he ever saw me play here in Wimbledon,” she added.

“He was very proud of me, and my mum the same.

“But at the end of the match when I walked out of the courts to the locker room, I had to sit down for five minutes because I was not able to see clearly any more. I was extremely tired.”

It was suggested to Bartoli that her father should perhaps not attend today.

“If I’m playing that well now it’s because we have been a team and we work well together,” she said. “I don’t think it’s a very good solution to do it like that every single match.”

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Top seed Caroline Wozniacki is yet to drop a set and the Dane will be looking to reach the quarter-finals at the All England Club for the first time when she meets Dominika Cibulkova.

The pair have played five times in the last two seasons, with Wozniacki’s only defeat coming in Sydney in January. The world No 1 said: “We grew up playing against each other in the juniors. So we know each other pretty well. It’s going to be a game where I need to keep my serve up. I need to get a lot of balls back and try to take the initiative and make her run.”

Fifth seed Maria Sharapova has also impressed so far but knows she will have to play a very solid match to see off China’s Peng Shuai.

The Russian said: “I think she has a great game for the grass. She’s playing some of the best tennis of her career. No doubt she’ll be out there playing loose and good tennis so I’ll have to be ready.”