Venus has scraped into the semis by the narrowest of margins.

Defending champion Venus is very lucky to still be in the competition after just one win in the Maroon Group. She progressed at the expense of Elena Dementieva after Dementieva’s limp 6-3, 6-2 loss to Svetlana Kuznetsova on Friday.

Williams would have been kicking herself after both her opening two matches. She never should have lost to Dementieva on day one, blowing a 6-3, 3-1 lead against an opponent she had beaten six times in a row. It was another near miss against her sister Serena on Wednesday. Venus came back from a double break down in the third to hold match point against her sibling before succumbing in a tiebreak.

After two such close losses, she showed a lot of heart to come back and beat Kuznetsova in three sets on Thursday but still had to rely on the Russian doing her a favour in taking out Dementieva.
In contrast Jankovic has taken care of her own destiny this week, winning all of her matches in the White Group. However it has been hard to judge her form this week. She received a boost when Dinara Safina retired against her earlier in the week and has since had easy matches against Victoria Azarenka and Caroline Wozniacki, both exhausted from marathon matches the day before.

No one has really talked about Jankovic as a major title contender for a while now but she’s always in the frame. If she wins this weekend it will raise her profile considerably and she has a good record against Venus Williams. The American won in three sets at this stage last year but Jankovic still leads the head-to-head 5-4.

Stan James are pricing Venus as a clear favourite at 1/2 but Jankovic looks like a very good price at 2/1 with sporting bet.