Defending champion Venus Williams has reached the Wimbledon final for the seventh time after a confident 6-1 7-6(3) victory over fifth seed Elena Dementieva.

Dementieva was overpowered from the beginning, being broken right away in the first game, plus two times later on, and was no match for the fast-serving Williams in the opening set. The second set was a closer affair with Dementieva giving more resistance and forcing a tiebreak. However, the four-time Wimbledon champion earned three successive match points in the tiebreak and defeated the Russian on the first one.

Seventh-seeded Williams will play either her sister Serena or Chinese phenomenon Zheng Jie in the championship match. (photo: Getty Images)

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Venus Williams stays on course for a fifth Wimbledon title reaching the semifinals where she'll meet Elena Dementieva.

Fifth seed Elena Dementieva moved into the semifinals beating fellow Russian Nadia Petrova 6-1 6-7 (6-8) 6-3. Seventh seed Venus Williams advanced to the final four with a 6-4 6-3 victory over Grand Slam quarterfinal debutante Thailand's Tamarine Tanasugarn, who thrashed Jelena Jankovic in the fourth round.

Dementieva raced to win the first set 6-1 against Petrova and led 5-1 in the second but let the lead slip and needed a third set. Williams never looked in danger of falling victim to Tanasugarn, but nor did she really hit the heights.

Williams leads head-to-head record against Dementieva 5-2, but they have never before met on grass. (source: BBC, photos: Getty Images)

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Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland beat defending champion and top seed Elena Dementieva 6-3 6-2 to capture the Istanbul Cup on Saturday.

The victory in the Istanbul Cup final earned world No.15 Radwanska her third WTA singles title, and the second one this season (she also won in Thailand in February).

Radwanska has never lost in a WTA title match, improving to 3-0. She is also 2-1 lifetime against Dementieva, who had not lost in seven previous matches at this event.

Today’s win earned second-seeded Radwanska $30,500, which means that the 19-year-old has become the first Polish player on the WTA Tour to pass $1 million in career earnings. (sources: Reuters, The Sports Network, photo via Yahoo)

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Seventh seed Elena Dementieva defeated defending champion Ana Ivanovic 6-2 7-5 at the Qatar Telecom German Open to set up an all-Russian final against Dinara Safina.

Ana Ivanovic is yet to beat Elena Dementieva, as she now trails the Russian 4-0 in head-to-head terms. In today’s semifinal, Ivanovic made too many unforced errors. She had a set point in the second set, but an all too familiar unforced error saw her chance disappear. Because the Serb didn’t manage to reach the final in Berlin, she’ll drop to No.3 in the rankings and Maria Sharapova will rise to No.3.

In-form Dinara Safina, who beat Justine Henin in the third round before ending Serena Williams's 17-match winning streak, advanced to the Qatar Total Open final with a 6-4 6-1 victory over Victoria Azarenka. Safina, seeded 13th, had to twice battle back from a break down in the first set against 18-year-old Azarenka. But in the second set, Azarenka seemed to be struggling with a knee injury, and Safina cruised to victory in just under one-and-a-half hours. Anyway, Belorussia's Azarenka is projected to crack the Top 20 for the first time on the new rankings — she will rise from No.26 to No.19. (via BBC)

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Cosmetics company Oriflame is official Russian sponsor of the Olympic Games and tennis star Elena Dementieva appears in a bunch of photos in their catalog. Here are some of them.

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