For Venus Williams, the memory of her first Wimbledon title remains vivid.
"I remember I won the semifinal, and I was in the car, and I said, `Wow, I'm going to win this,'" Williams said. "I just knew it. That was my whole plan before the tournament -- that I had to win it."
Five years later, Williams again has everything going according to plan. Playing in her first major semifinal in two years, she'll face defending champion Maria Sharapova on Thursday.
A former top-ranked player who has slumped to 16th, Williams seeks her first Grand Slam championship in nearly four years. But she sounds as confident as in 2000-2001, when she won her four major titles, including Wimbledon twice.
"I deserve to be in the semifinal," she said. "I feel like when I play my best, I'm still a step ahead for sure."
She'll need a breakthrough to beat the No. 2-seeded Sharapova, who won their two previous meetings and is unbeaten in her last 22 grass-court matches.
The other semifinal will be between top-ranked Lindsay Davenport, the 1999 champion, and No. 3-seeded Amelie Mauresmo.
Like Williams, Davenport is trying to end a Grand Slam drought. The most recent of her three major titles came at the Australian Open in January 2000, and after losing in the Wimbledon semifinals last year, Davenport said she was unlikely to return.
She subsequently changed her mind about retirement, and she's assured of retaining the No. 1 ranking next week.
"All of a sudden after I opened my big mouth, I started playing a lot better and started believing for the first time in a couple of years exactly what I was capable of doing," Davenport said.
"I can't even really think right now of stopping. I feel really excited to still be where I am. I have a lot of opportunities ahead of me. I'm looking forward to the challenges that are still presenting themselves."
The next challenge is Mauresmo, a former No. 1 player trying to win her first major title and shake a reputation for failing to win a big match. She has lost her past three Grand Slam semifinals, including two at Wimbledon.
"I'll try to make it one step further this year," Mauresmo said. She'll also try to snap a streak of six consecutive losses to Davenport.
All four quarterfinal matches were decided in straight sets. Williams generated the most drama, overcoming five set points in a tiebreaker to beat French Open runner-up Mary Pierce 6-0, 7-6 (10).
"She was playing unbelievable," Williams said. "That could have been a finals match, given how well she played."
Sharapova-Williams is a final-caliber pairing, too. Neither has lost a set, and Sharapova has dropped her serve just once in 44 games. She held every service game in the quarterfinals and beat Russian compatriot Nadia Petrova 7-6 (6), 6-3.
At 18 the youngest player left in the tournament, Sharapova still punctuates her shots with shrieks and her interview answers with giggles, but she has been unfazed by the role of defending champion.
"In the last year she has become one of the most famous athletes, if not personalities, around the world," Davenport said. "She seems to have handled it really well and is still improving and still very young. I expect her to be a top player for a long time."
Williams upheld family pride with a fourth-round victory over Jill Craybas, who had upset two-time champion Serena Williams less than 48 hours earlier. Now Venus can win one for the family again -- Sharapova beat Serena in last year's final.
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