In fact, she had two break points for a 5-3 lead in the first set, potentially remaking the day, but on the second one she narrowly missed a curling forehand passing shot to an open court that sailed just long. "Yeah, I went for too much," Venus said.
To the tiebreaker they went, just as they had in their stirring 2008 U.S. Open quarterfinal, when Serena edged Venus, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (7), and, this time, Serena blasted a service winner, a forehand winner and a clinching backhand lob among her superior play.
By the time of the fourth match point half an hour later, as Venus' last backhand screamed into the net and Serena fell to the grass behind the baseline, a Thursday and Saturday at Wimbledon had revealed her as the world's big-point maestro, not least her rapacious charge to the net for a backhand volley that ticked the tape and continued on her match point against Dementieva.
Noting that she tends to go "kamikaze" when cornered, she said, "I just love, you know, the opportunity to be pressured," a trait certainly a prerequisite for being the best player in the world to the human eye.
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chuck.culpepper@latimes.com
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(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX)
Wimbledon
TODAY'S MEN'S FINAL
Roger Federer vs.
Andy Roddick
TV: Channel 4, 6 a.m.
