Serena backs herself

Williams believes she is the favourite for the Wimbledon title

Last updated: 3rd July 2008   Subscribe to RSS Feed

Serena backs herself

Sibling rivalry: Venus and Serena Williams

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Serena Williams insists that she is the favourite to be crowned Wimbledon champion as she looks to set up a final showdown with her sister Venus.

Serena will take on outsider Zheng Jie in her semi-final, while in the other last four clash, defending champion Venus will go up against Elena Dementieva.

And although Venus has won the SW19 title four times, Serena beat her sister in the 2002 and 2003 finals.

"I'm not going to sit here and say (Venus is) favourite while I'm still in the tournament. That's not me," she said.

"I always believe that I'm the favourite. Even if I'm not the favourite, I'm always going to believe that I am."

Dementieva, though, disagrees with Serena, claiming that Venus has to be considered the favourite.

The Russian, who is the highest seed remaining after the top-four ranked players all failed to make it past the fourth round, said: "Venus is the defending champion. She likes to play here on grass and she's won a couple of times here.

"She really knows how to play here so I think she's favourite, without the (top four) seeded players."

Despite being tagged as favourite by Dementieva, Venus insists she hasn't talked about facing Serena in the final with her sister.

"We don't really talk about tennis a lot," she said.

"The most we talk about tennis is when we're on the doubles court.

"But no. We want to deserve to be there. We have to play the best tennis to deserve it, so our aim is really to play better than our opponents and really deserve to be there."

As the rank outsider left in the competition, Zheng knows that she faces a tough task in doing her bit to prevent an all-Williams final.

The world No.133, the first Chinese player to reach a grand slam semi-final, admitted: "Serena, with no doubt, is an outstanding player, and so far I haven't found any weak links about her.

"But as a first semi-final, I would rather enjoy the game than anything else."