Sports: Venus storms into Wimbledon final

London, July 6 : Venus Williams walloped and screamed her way into her sixth Wimbledon final with a 6-2 6-4 victory over Serbian teenager Ana Ivanovic.

Seeded 23 here after several injury setbacks, the American has overcome a shaky start to the championships to display the type of power play that has made her bid for a fourth title at the All England Club increasingly realistic.

''I wasn't thinking about the final at the beginning of the tournament,'' she told a news conference.

''I feel like I had to play some of my best tennis to get through against some great players so it's very exciting.'' With a world ranking of 31, she is the lowest-ranked player to reach the women's final since computer rankings began in 1975.

She was taken to three sets in her first and third round matches and looked like she would not make it much further before raising her game to crush second seed Maria Sharapova and then fifth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova.

She dished up more of the same against sixth seed Ivanovic, taking immediate control with a double break to go 4-0 up in the first set and then dominated the 19-year-old with aggressive play at the net, powerful serves and deep groundstrokes.

After wasting the first of two set points with a double fault, she forced Ivanovic to hit long to hand her the set.

Williams broke early in the second but this time Ivanovic wiped out the advantage with a scorching forehand winner in the fourth game.

The American grabbed another break in the seventh and powered her way to three match points on Ivanovic's serve in the ninth.

As in her quarter-final match, Ivanovic saved the three match points but in the next game hit out to allow Williams to claim her place in tomorrow's final where she will face 18th seed Marion Bartoli of France.

Ivanovic said she needed to work on her big stage mentality so that she was better equipped to deal with the later parts of tournaments.

''For the first time in my career...I play more matches on the Centre Court,'' she said. ''I have to learn how to deal with it better.

''Definitely I'm a little bit disappointed. But at the end of the day, I lost to a great champion. She was better today. But still I'm very happy about the tournament I had.''

Reuters>