London: In a women’s game supposedly savaged by anarchy, ailing as a hard-to-market hodgepodge with the No. 1 ranking passed around like a relay baton since Justine Henin retired in May 2008, well, look here.

Somehow, after the ruthless process of a Grand Slam with all the masses who can blast tennis balls and grunt like wounded hyenas and beat the stuffing out of almost everybody, Wimbledon has churned out semi-finalists with seedings Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4.

Why, it’s a pillar of form.

Thursday will present No. 3 Venus Williams, the two-time defending champion and five-time champion who has looked so out-of-this-world here that she said after her quarter final on Tuesday against Agnieszka Radwanska, “You know, that first set for me was really almost perfect.”

It will march out No. 2 Serena Williams, a two-time champion whose game against No. 8 Victoria Azarenka rose to such divine heights (26 winners, seven unforced errors) that the ambitious Azarenka sighed, “She really showed the unbeatable Serena today, I guess.”

There’ll be that muffled No. 1 Dinara Safina, which will mean possibly another sighting of the invisible demons that circle in her head, barking such doubt that she served 15 double faults in her quarter final and said, “Fifteen? I thought it was much more.”

And it will showcase No. 4 Elena Dementieva, so quiet here it seems she just turned up off a double-decker bus, when her berth actually marks the persistence of a heady 12 months packed with four Grand Slam semi-final berths and one Olympic gold medal.

What an orderly sport, with three semi-finalists who haven’t lost a set and the other the No. 1 player in the world who can beat most anyone including herself. So Venus will play Safina, Serena will play Dementieva, and an all-Williams final or an all-Russian final could ensue.

“Can we just play two finals instead?” Dementieva asked.

She might have a worthy plea, because everybody and the strawberry vendors expect another Williams-Williams final, which would become the fourth of the decade and a reprise of 2008. The way Venus and Serena played on Tuesday had crowds on separate courts murmuring and pundits quibbling about which woman played more toweringly.

Even if the theme of Venus in her grass paradise has congealed to familiarity the last two years, the 6-1, 6-2 demolition of the excellent No. 14 Radwanska accessed some tier above even the usual Venus. It had the 16 of 18 first-set service points, the 29 winners to her Polish opponent’s six, the comment by the 20-year-old Radwanska that “if she will play like this, she will make it one more time this tournament.”

Count it up: 19 consecutive wins, 32 consecutive sets won, longest streak here since Martina Navratilova won 40 from 1982 to 1985. “I do have strategy,” Venus reminded after the show of power. “Maybe it doesn’t look like it, but I do. I think that’s my secret weapon, that it doesn’t look like I’m thinking, but I am.”

LA Times-Washington Post News Service