Players Under the Microscope / Editor / 14 April 2007 /

Venus Williams will face second seed Jelena Jankovic in the Family Circle Cup semi-finals following her quarter-final victory against Anabel Medina Garrigues.

Williams, the 2004 champion, is still working her way back to full match fitness after eight months out with a wrist injury and was made to work all the way for her 6-4 7-5 triumph on Friday.

The 26-year-old's serve was broken twice, while also conceding four double faults, in the second set before finally securing the win in one hour and 36 minutes after recovering from a 0-3 deficit.

"I've never played her before, so I expected to stick to the same game plan I've had, but I didn't expect it to be as tough, and I think that I just started making a string of errors that made it tough," said Williams.

"There were a few games that went so fast. So that doesn't always help, but she's a really good player, especially on this surface."

World number nine Jankovic needed just 50 minutes to ease to an emphatic 6-2 6-0 victory against 12th seed Katarina Srebotnik.
Williams, the big-hitting American, is the marginal 1.97 favourite in the Match Odds market to beat Jankovic (2) in Charleston. Interestingly, punters cannot separate the two in the Winner market, where the pair are joint 2.84 favourites.

Ninth seed Vera Zvonareva ended the challenge of Dutch wildcard Michaella Krajicek in the quarter-finals to book her place in the last four against fourth seed Dinara Safina after her quarter-final opponent, Tatiana Golovin, retired during their quarter-final match.
Safina can be backed at 4.1 to win the Family Circle Cup, while Zvonareva is available at 5.4 to claim glory.

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