LONDON: Serena and Venus Williams closed in on Tuesday on a fifth all-sister Wimbledon final while beaten quarter-finalist Dominika Cibulkova prepared to rush back to Slovakia to get ready for her wedding.

Six-time champion Serena reached her 10th semi-final at the All England Club with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Russia 21st seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

She goes on to face Russian world number 50 Elena Vesnina on Thursday for a place in the final.

Five-time champion Venus, seeded eight, enjoyed a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 victory over Kazakhstan’s world number 96 Yaroslava Shvedova to reach her first Wimbledon semi-final in seven years.

The 36-year-old will now face Ger­man fourth seed Angelique Kerber who reached her second Wimbledon semi-final with a 7-5, 7-6 (7-2) win over Simona Halep, fifth seed from Romania.

Vesnina made her first semi-final at a major, by seeing off bride-to-be Cibulkova, the Slovak 19th seed, 6-2, 6-2.

“They showed Venus’s score on court and I was like ‘yaaaay’. I want her to win so bad, but not in the final if I’m there,” said defending champion Serena, who took her Grand Slam match win record to 302 — four behind Martina Navratilova’s all-time mark.

It is the 11th time that the sisters have advanced to the semi-finals of the same Grand Slam event.

Serena took a 5-0 career lead over Russian 21st seed Pavlyuchenkova into Tuesday’s match, having not dropped a set to her opponent since their first meeting in 2010.

But the match was decided in the ninth game of both sets with Williams carving out the only breaks of the match against Pavlyuchenkova, playing in her first Wimbledon quarter-final.

The American finished the match with an 11th ace.

“It was good. I am excited to be able to win and get through, it felt really good,” said Serena, who is bidding to win a record-equalling Open era 22nd Grand Slam title.

On the potential of an all-Williams final, Serena refused to get too far ahead of herself even though she has a 4-0 winning record over Vesnina.

“We don’t really talk too much about it but we are playing doubles later so we are just happy to be in the semi-finals,” she said.

Venus is the oldest women’s semi-finalist since Martina Navratilova in 1994. Venus, who won the last of her seven Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon in 2008, is back in the last-four of a Grand Slam for the first time since the 2010 US Open.

The eight-time Wimbledon finalist trails 3-2 in her five career meetings with 28-year-old Kerber, who won their only meeting on grass in the 2012 Olympics at Wimbledon.

Cibulkova is due to marry fiance Miso Navara in her hometown of Bratislava on Saturday — the same day as the women’s final — and the 27-year-old was willing to postpone the ceremony if she won her quarter-final.

But 29-year-old Vesnina took advantage of a distracted display from Cibulkova to become the fifth unseeded woman to reach the All England Club semi-finals since the Grand Slams switched to 32 seeds in 2001.

Results (prefix number denotes seeding):

Women’s singles:

Quarter-final: Elena Vesnina (Russia) bt 19-Dominika Cibulkova (Slovakia) 6-2, 6-2; 1-Serena Williams (US) bt 21-Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova (Russia) 6-4, 6-4; 8-Venus Williams (US) bt Yaroslava Shvedova (Kazakhstan) 7-6 (7-5), 6-2; 4-Angelique Kerber (Germany) bt 5-Simona Halep (Romania) 7-5, 7-6 (7-2).

Men’s singles:

Fourth round: 10-Tomas Berdych (Czech Republic) bt Jiri Vesely (Czech Republic) 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (10-8). 6-7 (11-9), 6-3.

Monday’s remaining results:

Men’s singles:

Fourth round: 2-Andy Murray (Britain) bt 15-Nick Kyrgios (Australia) 7-5, 6-1, 6-4; 32-Lucas Pouille (France) bt 19-Bernard Tomic (Australia) 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 10-8; 12-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France) bt 7-Richard Gasquet (France) 4-2—Gasquet retired; 6-Milos Raonic (Canada) bt 11-David Goffin (Belgium) 4-6, 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-4.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2016