Roddick, Federer Set Up Anticipated Semis; Sisters Doin' It For Themselves

ATP REVIEW/PREVIEW
In the resumption of matches delayed by rain on Wednesday, Sebastien Grosjean put a dash on British hopes for another year by finishing off Tim Henman in the fourth set, and Mark Philippoussis came from behind to beat unlikely quarterfinalist Alexander Popp 8-6 in the fifth. "I started pretty well and that helped me to finish the match," said the diminutive Grosjean, whose serve continuously outshone the weak efforts by the Brit. "I knew when I was on the court the people were behind him -- but I tried to focus on my game." Philippoussis put on a magician-like effort in his quarterfinal, coming back from 0-2 sets down Wednesday, then in the fifth set Thursday fighting off three break points at 5-5, and eventually breaking the giant German for the win. In the two other quarters begun Thursday, both Andy Roddick and Roger Federer steamed to straight-set wins, setting up a highly-anticipated semifinal meeting. Roddick continued his amazing first serve percentage (71% in the QF match) against unseeded Jonas Bjorkman who had beaten him on grass last season, throwing down 13 aces on the Swede. Federer, rolling to an easy win over Sjeng Schalken, looked to have put behind him the back problems that arose during his fourth round encounter. In doubles play, (1)Bhupathi/Mirnyi advanced into the semis with a straight-set win over (8)Damm/Suk, and next face Paes/Rikl in an Indian grudge affair. The other doubles semi is defending champs Bjorkman/Woodbridge vs. the unseeded Israel Davis Cup team of Erlich/Ram.

The semifinals will be Roddick vs. Federer in a battle of likely future No. 1s, and Philippoussis vs. Grosjean in a classic service-vs.-return confrontation. Unless Club Fed makes a mental no-show, Roddick is going to have his hands full against the player who has consistently given him problems since the two of them came to prominence roughly at the same time on tour. Federer has brutalized A-Rod in virtually all their encounters: losing in a third-set tiebreak in their first encounter at 2001 Basel, but then losing in straight sets last year at Sydney, then again at Basel. "Yeah, it's gonna be a match that everybody's been kind of waiting for, especially myself as well," Federer said. "He's been in a (slam) semifinal before, me never. So who knows if he's got more experience or not. This is quite tough to judge because we're quite young." A-Rod and coach Brad Gilbert will have to sit and think hard about that 0-3 mark, and how to best utilize Roddick's limited weaponry (serve, forehand) against the Swiss' army knife full of tricks. Grosjean and Philippoussis have a curious history against each other, with Flipper winning their first two encounters (on clay of all surfaces), and the Frenchman winning their last two -- on hardcourt in 2001, and one on clay last year. In this their first encounter on grass, an oversized nod goes to Grosjean, who has been steady if not spectacular off the ground, and has showed some spunk off the serve and the occasional net foray. Philippoussis for his part has looked mediocre in all departments but the serve, and will need to unleash a flurry of aces as he did against Andre Agassi (a Wimbledon-record 46) to come out the winning side of this one. After consecutive five-setters against Agassi and Alexander Popp (who he appeared sluggish against from the start), it remains to be seen if the Aussie, perpetually coming off injury, will have the fitness level to compete with the scurrying Frenchman.

WTA REVIEW/PREVIEW
Venus and Serena Williams repelled the charge of the waffles Thursday at Wimbledon, negating another all-Belgian final for the more familiar all-sister affair. With her No. 1 ranking on the line, Serena made short work of Justine Henin-Hardenne in her semifinal, avenging the tear-inducing loss from a month ago at the French Open. "She was just too good today, and I didn't play my best tennis for sure," H-H said. "I was getting nervous little bit at the beginning of the match, and she just deserved it." Screaming "C'mon!" and swinging so hard as to bring gasps from the Brit crowd and causing earrings to fly off, Serena used the slick grasscourts to her advantage in a display of power tennis that overwhelmed the diminutive Belgian. "I really played well today," Serena said. "I was really focused. I had to be." The toll on H-H was obvious when after one point of relentlessly chasing Serena's forehand bombs, the panting Belgian double faulted to lose the game. In the other U.S. vs. Waffle semifinal, Venus was tested against a hard-charging Kim Clijsters, dropping the first set before winning a tightly-contested second, then mowing over the would-be-No. 1 easily in the third. During the first set Venus received treatment for her nagging abdominal injury that led to her early exit at the French Open. This will be the fourth consecutive year a Williams sister has won the Wimbledon singles title.
In women's quarterfinal doubles action, (15)Dementieva/Krasnoroutskaya (15) beat unseeded Vento-Kabchi/Widjaja in three sets.

UNSEEDED ISRAELITES SECURE MEN'S DOUBLES SEMIFINAL, TAKE ON DEFENDING CHAMPS
A pair of unseeded, virtually unknown Israeli doubles specialists have reached the men's doubles semifinals at Wimbledon, stunning three seeded teams along the way. Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram, who are unranked on the ATP Team Rankings since they have no played a tour-level event together in 2003, wondered whether their combined individual rankings would get them in the draw this year at Wimbledon, much less propel them to their first grand slam semifinal. Only earlier this year the 23-year-old Ram and 26-year-old Erlich were toiling on the Futures circuit, playing with numerous other partners and occasionally coming together to win Greece F1, reach the final of the New Delhi Challenger, and represent Israel in a Davis Cup doubles loss to Belarus (l. to Max Mirnyi/Vladimir Voltchkov). Until this Wimbledon, the pair had not won a tour-level match since 2001. Last week the pair struggled mightily in their first round match, coming back from 1-2 sets down against the unseeded pair of Healy/Skoch to win in five, before ripping out three wins against seeded opponents without dropping a set. Their seeded victims have included No. 12-seeded Czechs Cermak/Friedl, No. 6-seeded Frenchmen Llodra/Santoro, and as the only unseeded team in the quarterfinals, beating No. 2 seeds Knowles/Nestor in three consecutive tiebreaks. So unknown are Erlich and Ram that they do not even appear in the 2003 ATP Media Guide. Now the young Israelis face their biggest test in a semifinal against defending champions and No. 4 seeds Bjorkman/Woodbridge, who boast eight Wimbledon doubles titles between them.

WOMEN DOING THE CLAY-GRASS DOUBLE
A surprising number of women have won the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year since the advent of the Open Era (since 1968):
(1) Margaret Court -- 1970
(1) Evonne Goolagong -- 1971
(1) Billie Jean King -- 1972
(1) Chris Evert -- 1974
(2) Martina Navratilova -- 1982, '84
(4) Steffi Graf -- 1988, '93, '95-96
(1) Serena Williams -- 2002

TOP FOUR IN WOMEN'S WIMBLEDON SEMIS
Following a long history of top-heavy play on the women's tour, the top four seeded women have advanced to the semifinals nine times in the Open Era at Wimbledon:
2003 -- Serena, Clijsters, Henin-Hardenne, Venus
1995 -- Graf, Sanchez-Vicario, Martinez, Novotna
1992 -- Seles, Graf, Sabatini, Navratilova
1988 -- Graf, Navratilova, Evert, Shriver
1980 -- Navratilova, Austin, Evert Lloyd, Goolagong Cawley
1979 -- Navratilova, Evert Lloyd, Goolagong Cawley, Austin
1978 -- Evert, Navratilova, Goolagong Cawley, Wade
1976 -- Evert, Goolagong Cawley, Wade, Navratilova
1973 -- Court, King, Goolagong, Evert

ATP CHAMPIONS RACE UPDATE
1st Ferrero,Juan Carlos/ESP 537
2nd Agassi,Andre/USA 472
3rd Federer,Roger/SUI 435 (485 for SF win, 545 for title)
4th Coria,Guillermo/ARG 372
5th Roddick,Andy/USA 370 (420 for SF win, 480 for title)
6th Schuettler,Rainer/GER 349
7th Moya,Carlos/ESP 319
8th Verkerk,Martin/NED 235
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9th Mantilla,Felix/ESP 235
10th Grosjean,Sebastien/FRA 230 (280 for SF win, 340 for title)
11th Kuerten,Gustavo/BRA 225
12th Calleri,Agustin/ARG 222
13th Hewitt,Lleyton/AUS 208
14th Costa,Albert/ESP 201
15th Philippoussis,Mark/AUS 195 (245 for SF win, 305 for title)

TOUR NOTES, QUOTES, AND BARBS
ESPN stops coverage of the Philippoussis-Popp match at 5-5 in the fifth set!?! Are you kidding?!?...ESPN's Chris Fowler is pretty confident, despite the player mispronunciations and fumbled off-the-cuff "insights," that tennis is in his "realm": "I don't feel out of place. What I do is host. When an expert analyst or a play-by-play guy does a sport outside his realm -- that's something else."...Anna Kournikova's ex-husband Sergei Federov says he will not return to the Detroit Red Wings...Yesterday, ATP Chief Executive Mark Miles was expected to meet with the Grand Slam Committee, which would be his first official session with that group since it rejected an initial $50-million request for the players in Paris...The clothing manufacturers (such as adidas) are continuing to pressure their sponsored players to give up their support of an ATP boycott; adidas is also citing a clause in some players' contracts that they can stop payment if the player refuses to compete in major tournaments...WTA Chief Executive Larry Scott said he is planning to "review" the WTA's age eligibility rule that restricts 14 to 18-year-olds to playing only a few events, now that he sees dollar signs with the rise of 16-year-old Maria "Orgasmo" Sharapova...The Times Online on Tim Henman choking the first set tiebreak against Sebastien Grosjean: "It was a set that said everything about Henman: why he is loved, why he is feared, why he is despised...So we went to the tie-break, and Henman continued his bout of inspired form. He raced to 6-3. Three set points: and a small voice inside me whispered: too many. But all the same, I mean, three set points, the first two on his own serve, there really was no way he could lose the set, was there? Ah, but you don't know our Tim."...Australian Todd Woodbridge is closing on a staggering eighth Wimbledon doubles title; the Australian is third on the list of all-time doubles titles winners with 75, within two titles of John McEnroe (77) and three titles of record-holder Tom Okker (78)...If Roger Federer beats Andy Roddick, he will overtake Andre Agassi and move to No. 2 behind Juan Carlos Ferrero on the 2003 ATP Champions Race; Fed would move to No. 1 by winning the title...Find the stone in this ATP media release excerpt: "After reaching his second Grand Slam semifinal of the year, Andy Roddick has moved up to fifth position in the ATP Champions Race from and is only two points behind Guillermo Coria in fourth."...H-H came with the denial when a reporter asked her in a press conference: "Someone just said in the last press conference that you told your coach you didn't admit the hand-raising incident because Serena is arrogant and haughty."...Club Fed was a little miffed to be stuck on Court 2 for his quarterfinal -- hey Fed, you'd never reached a slam semi and you were playing Sjeng Schalken, did you want the BBC to interrupt their prime time soaps too?...Andy Roddick can't comprehend former players Boris Becker, Pat Cash, and John McEnroe sending a letter to the ITF saying the game is being ruined by too much hitting power: "I just feel if a letter's sent, it should be sent by current players. I'm not really sure what their, you know, concern is." Well, they, you know, care about the game Andy...Grosjean said he hurt his "butt" in his win over Henman…WEATHER: Things are looking good for the weekend…STAT OF THE DAY: This is the first time in the Open Era that four men are first-time Wimbledon semifinalists.