For the second year in a row the mighty Williams sisters will face each other in the final of Wimbledon.

Serena Williams won the longest women’s semifinal at Wimbledon in the era of Open tennis and got one step away from getting another make-up holder (she stores her make-up brushes in her numerous trophies). However, that one step is a huge one. Even though two-time Wimbledon champion Serena will be playing her fifth Wimbledon final, her sister Venus has won the prestigious title as much as five times, having played the final seven times so far, and is twice defending champion this year.

Second seed Serena was one point from losing to fourth-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia, but as always with Serena, it’s never over till it’s over, and the American won the women’s match of Wimbledon 2009 6-7(4) 7-5 8-6. Williams was down 4-5, 30-40 in the final set, before she leveled at 5-5. In the 13th game she broke Dementieva and then held on to her own serve to win in 2 hours and 49 minutes.

In the other semifinal, fourth seed Venus Williams comfortably defeated top seed and world No.1 Dinara Safina of Russia 6-1 6-0 in only 51 minutes.

Serena and Venus Williams have combined for seven of the last nine Wimbledon titles. Impressive! (photos courtesy of Life)

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Wimbledon is by far the most traditional tennis event, but some formalities have been changed in recent years and the latest one is that female players are no longer referred to as "Miss" or "Mrs" on scoreboards.

Instead of "Miss" or "Mrs" in front of players' last names, Wimbledon is now, for the first time in 132 years, using players’ first names. However, the tradition hasn’t disappeared completely, since umpires are still referring to women players as "Miss" or "Mrs".

The introduction of this change happened without fuss or fanfare.

"There is no official line on this," says a spokeswoman for Wimbledon. "It's something that we've just changed this year. It's actually gone completely unnoticed, until now." (source: BBC)

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Beauty of a player is among the things taken into consideration when deciding on the court selection at Wimbledon and it has been confirmed by All England Club spokesperson Johnny Perkins.

"Good looks are a factor," said Perkins, and added that court selection is "a great big mixture of where the players are in the draw, who they're playing, what their ranking is".

Svetlana Kuznetsova was among those bewildered by the situation:

It's weird. If you look at the schedule, it's not only about me. It's about Dinara on Court No 2, Venus (Williams) on Court No 1 and the girls who are not very highly seeded they play on Centre. I respect them. They're great players for sure. But this is what's weird for me; what's their strategy, what's their plan of making the schedule?

Kuzzy, I’m illustrating this article with your photo!

Despite the frustrations of the supposedly less-pretty top players, BBC is benefiting from Wimbledon’s scheduling policy.

A BBC source said:

No one has heard of many of the women now, so if they are pretty it definitely gives them an edge. Our preference would always be a Brit or a babe as this always delivers high viewing figures.

(source Daily Mail via Down the Line, photo courtesy of Life)

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The injury which made Ana Ivanovic quit Wimbledon 2009 in tears is luckily just a mild one.

The 21-year-old Ivanovic was forced to retire from her fourth-round match with Venus Williams yesterday, but fortunately, the prognosis of her injury is a good one: although very painful, her left-thigh injury is not serious, it is a micro-tear.

The Serbian world No.12 must rest for just a week or two, and hence her schedule is not supposed to be affected. She will next play Los Angeles. (source: Ana Ivanovic's official website, photo courtesy of Life)

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Semifinal pairs are set at Wimbledon: twice defending champion Venus Williams will play top seed Dinara Safina, while last year’s finalist Serena Williams will face Elena Dementieva.

Five-time Wimbledon champion Venus Williams wasted little time in defeating 11th seed Agnieszka Radwanska. Williams raced to a 5-0 lead in 18 minutes and won the first set in just 27 minutes. Radwanska was coping better at the start of the second set and even got to 0-40 in game two, before converting her first chance to break. However, the third-seeded Williams wasn’t really threatened and broke two times in a row to get to 5-2 and soon after she sealed a 6-1 6-2 victory.

World number one Dinara Safina, who is not a fan of grass and has never before went further than the third round at Wimbledon, came back from a set down to overcome unseeded Sabine Lisicki 6-7(5) 6-4 6-1, the winner over ninth seed Caroline Wozniacki in the fourth round. Safina remained on course for a first Grand Slam title, despite her unconvincing game and 15 double faults.

Fourth seed Elena Dementieva crushed Francesca Schiavone 6-2 6-2 and advanced to the Wimbledon semifinal for the second year in a row. The last to join the semifinalist was second seed Serena Williams who beat eighth seed Victoria Azarenka 6-2 6-3.

It's the first time since 2006 that all four top seeded players reached the semifinals. (photos: Life)

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