Williamses make it a sister act

Venus Williams shook off a blister and some patchy play to get tennis's Sister Act off to a flying start on women's semi-final day yesterday here, beating off a determined challenge from France's Amelie Mauresmo to win 6-3, 5-7, 6-4 and earn herself a crack at wresting a US Open title hat-trick.

Inevitably today's final in New York will be an all-Williams affair with little sister Serena then powering past Lindsay Davenport 6-3, 7-5 in the secoind semi. It will be the American sisters' third straight grand slam final.

Venus won the last two US Opens, beating Serena in the 2001 final, but this time is seeded second to Serena, who beat her at the French Open and Wimbledon this year. Venus's play against Mauresmo, though, did not justify star billing. The harder-serving Venus had only three aces, the same as Mauresmo. And she had 10 double faults to four for the 10th-seeded Frenchwoman.

Venus also had more unforced errors, 44-35, and was outplayed at the net. Mauresmo complained in vain about several calls that went against her and replays showed she was right on some of them.

But Venus remained calm when she struggled. "I keep telling myself that it's just a game and go out there and have fun," she said afterwards. "It was hard to hold the racket at times, but you only get one chance at the final and you try to take it."

She had to have her right hand taped twice during the match, the first time before the 12th game of the second set. Venus had her service broken in that game, losing the set. "In the middle of that second set, I really found my rhythm and really got into the match," Mauresmo said.

The second taping came before the fourth game of the third set. Again, Mauresmo broke service to level the match at 2-2. But the turning point came in the next game when Mauresmo fell behind 0-40. She followed with two aces, then double-faulted to give the game to Venus.

Both players held serve for the next four games, leaving Venus ahead 5-4. Then Mauresmo, who lost to Serena in the Wimbledon semi-finals, had three break points in the final game, but Venus saved them all with two serves of 116 mph and an ace at 114 mph (183 kph).

Later, Mauresmo held two fingers close together to indicate how tight the match was: "It's just this much and next time I'm sure it's going to go my way." And she had plenty of support in the crowd. "Allez Amelie" (Go Amelie), one fan shouted.

"It felt great, actually, to play an American and feel the crowd behind you," Mauresmo said.

Earlier, India's Mahesh Bhupathi, who won the Wimbledon mixed doubles this summer with the Russian Elena Likhovtseva, captured the seventh grand slam doubles title of his career when he teamed up with Max Mirnyi of Belarus to beat the Czech No11 seeds Jiri Novak and Radek Stepanek 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 in yesterday's men's final.

It was the third-seeded combination's third final of the season but their first grand slam title together. It took them just over 1 hours to clinch the $350,000 (£250,000) winners' cheque.

Mirnyi, beaten by Andre Agassi in the quarter-finals of the singles, said: "It's a good one to win - any grand slam is good but we've known each other for a long time. I think we started to play on tour about maybe the same time. Finally after this many years it's good to win such a big tournament."