Williamses no longer a shoo-in

The sisters have knee and sole problems, reports Richard Jago.

Contrary to popular opinion the Williams sisters can be beaten. Who says so? The Williams sisters themselves.

If this sounds as though Venus and Serena are trying to promote a women's singles event that has been at risk of becoming predictable, their third-round performances suggested that the Williamses are unexpectedly vulnerable. Venus is carrying an injury and Serena cannot stand up.

The elder sister dropped the first set in Saturday's unimpressive performance against Maureen Drake, a Canadian outside the top 100, and afterwards went straight to the treatment table; Serena rang her father Richard to seek advice on what had gone wrong during her undignified scramble against Els Callens on Friday.

Serena's problem is easily solvable. The bottoms of her shoes were not up to the job of creating friction with the dry, shiny surface and they need changing, perhaps to the old-fashioned herring-bone soles, which were specially designed for gripping grass. But the 20-year-old has been talking as though no alternative exists.

Venus's difficulties may be less easy to overcome. She has tendinitis of the left knee, which caused her to consider withdrawing from the doubles with Serena, made her start with a slight limp and prevented her from playing with full impact for at least a set.

"I live to see another day," said the Wimbledon champion, only because "I wasn't ready to go home. I wasn't ready to give it up just yet.

"I didn't speed it up the way I would have liked. It's just hard at my height on the grass. I have to bend a lot and sometimes I get sore."

But Venus has been used to living with injuries and, if her fourth-round opponent Lisa Raymond spends most of today's match net-rushing as she sometimes does, it may shorten the rallies in a way that could help the struggling champion.

Raymond did well to win in three sets against the former Wimbledon champion Conchita Martinez but she has yet to get beyond the last eight and will probably not get that far this time.

The biggest threat in Venus's half may come in the semi-finals from Justine Henin, the purest tennis player of the lot.

Henin's once frail-looking physique has acquired surprising muscle in the 12 months since reaching last year's final and she appears to have recovered from the sinusitis afflicting her at the French Open. No woman plays with the imagination and variety that she does and it would be a delight if the 20-year-old Belgian were to make a serious challenge.

She is one of perhaps only two players capable of doing so. The other is Jennifer Capriati, who is one of the few with the sheer physical strength necessary to withstand the Williamses' power, though in eight attempts she has yet to reach a Wimbledon final.

However, she has been exuding an equanimity that once would have seemed impossible, on and off the court, and has been going so well that some of her supporters held up signs behind the umpire's chair saying "your loss, Billie Jean", referring to Capriati's extraordinary ejection from the United States FedCup team.

Did she agree with her supporters? "Of course."

The third seed may nevertheless need to play well today to deal with one of the most improved of all grass-court players, the unseeded Eleni Daniilidou of Greece, and the bottom half also contains Jelena Dokic, a significantly better player than last year, and Daniela Hantuchova, a star in the making. The fierce Croatian versus the graceful Slovakian could be the match of the day.

The winner should have a quarter-final with Serena Williams, provided the world No2 sorts herself out. "I don't feel that I am playing well in this tournament at all," she says. "I'm missing too many first serves and I'm not converting my break points. I was also a bit nervous to move [on Friday]." She might have added that she is still not coming in enough.

She might get away with it today against Chanda Rubin, her fellow black American, who describes the Williams successes as "an inspiration". But thereafter it will get more difficult, as Serena acknowledges. The identity of the finalists is not such an open-and-shut case after all.