Shortly after her sister Serena lost to Elena Dementieva, seventh seed Venus Williams was beaten by home favorite Li Na 7-5 7-5 in the quarterfinals of the 2008 Olympics in Beijing.

"Venus was the best player in the world, she has just won Wimbledon," said Li, the first Chinese player to enter the top 20 in the world rankings. "She has big serves that I can't receive but I told myself to calm down and play my best."

"Wow! You can't see this kind of crowd anywhere else. It helped me and pushed me a lot. This is a present I give to the Beijing Olympic Games but I have no time to celebrate. I have more matches to go."

In the semifinals world No.42 Li Na will face the winner of the match between Jelena Jankovic and Dinara Safina. The other semifinal is set and includes Russians Elena Dementieva and Vera Zvonareva. (source: Reuters, photo: Getty Images)

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It's the first time I see Serena Williams' tattoo on the nape of her neck. Is it a heart (as fellow blogger Rich thinks, the former number one might be revealing secret love to the world) or possibly some symbol? You see how the lines on the top of the heart are crossed, that doesn't seem to be just a regular heart.

Additional info: At the Olympic Tennis Event fourth-seeded Serena was knocked out by Russian Elena Dementieva in the quarterfinals. Williams' game was sloppy in the previous round against Alize Cornet, and she didn't manage to raise her game enough to fight off Dementieva, despite powering through the opening set. Losing to the Russian 3-6 6-4 6-3 chances of an all-Williams final at the Olympics have been ruined.

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American Serena Williams defeated France's Alize Cornet 3-6 6-3 6-4 and joined sister Venus in the quarterfinals of the Olympics Tennis Event in Beijing. The possibility of an all-Williams final is still alive.

During the match Serena made 48 unforced errors and had her serve broken on three of five occasions.

The fourth seed even smashed a racquet in frustration. "It was in the middle of the first set," said Williams. "I missed so many shots and I was not playing anywhere near the way I was practising, so it was just kind of frustrating to have practised so well and to come out and do the total opposite."

In the end, however, great hope of French women's tennis Alize Cornet surrendered to her mightier opponent.

Next for Serena is fifth-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia, a silver medalist in Sydney eight years ago. (source: Xinhua, photo: Getty Images)

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The Williams sisters confidently advanced to the third round of the Beijing Olympics.

Serena Williams beat Australia’s Samantha Stosur 6-2 6-0 in just 44 minutes dropping only six points on her serve in the match. From 2-2, the fourth-seeded Williams won 40 of the final 49 points and 10 consecutive games. In addition, she lost only five points in the second set.

Sister Venus, seeded seventh, soon joined Serena with a 6-1 6-4 victory over Iveta Benesova of the Czech Republic. Venus didn’t face one break points in the match, and lost only two of 24 points on her first serve.

The Williams sisters are playing doubles together at the Beijing Olympics. They are supposed to play their first match on Tuesday night. Venus and Serena won the gold in doubles at Sydney in 2000.

In singles, Serena will next face France’s Alize Cornet, while Venus will play Victoria Azarenka.

Additional info: No matter how well Serena was moving on the court, after the match she almost fell into the photographers' pit while signing autographs. Oops. Luckily, she didn't get hurt. (source: ESPN, photos: Getty Images)

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Jelena Jankovic of Serbia has today officially become top-ranked player in the world and she celebrated that fact with a 6-3 6-3 victory over Zimbabwe's Cara Black in the first round of the Olympic Tennis Event.

Unfortunately, I'm sure Jankovic can’t be completely happy because she has an injury which can easily wreck her campaign.

"It's quite special to be playing as number one and I was quite excited about that," she said.

"I had some problems but I managed to finish the match. I will see what the doctors say and receive some treatment and see how I will feel for tomorrow."

Jankovic will face Ukraine's Alona Bondarenko in round two.

BTW: JJ looked great in a red dress specially designed for the Olympics. (source: AFP)

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