Forget Wimbledon: This Is Williamsdom

Here in the most cherished land in all of tennis, the talk is about two sisters from Compton.

The Williams family has taken over the sport. Venus Williams beat Martina Hingis and Serena Williams beat Lisa Raymond, and now they’ll meet in a Wimbledon semifinal that is as much a validation of their parents as it is a referendum on the state of the game.

Tuesday, they made Lindsay Davenport-Monica Seles--an otherwise compelling meeting between the defending champion and an all-time great seeking the one Grand Slam title that has eluded her--into just another match.

They prompted the WTA to put out a 3 1/2-page release about sisters on the tour. Among the items: This is the ninth time sisters have played each other in a Grand Slam event and the first time in the semifinals.

“We’re just making history as we go,” Venus said.

“If their grandparents could see what took place, they wouldn’t believe it,” said Richard Williams, their father. “They’d say, ‘This is impossible.’ They wouldn’t believe it. They’d call you a liar.”

uBelieve it. Don’t bother fighting it, either. Savor it. The experience is there for all of us to share. The joy, the excitement, the exuberance, the sheer Williamsness of it all.

There’s Venus, 20, raising her hands and bouncing up and down after beating Hingis on Centre Court, waving to the crowd, walking to her chair, then turning around to wave at her father in the stands and bounce some more. (Richard responded by bouncing himself).

There’s Serena, 18, who is on as much of a roll in her news conferences as she is on the courts, bursting into laughter at another one of her jokes.

And in between, there’s some extraordinary tennis. The Williams sisters make the big serve as big a part of the women’s game as it is the men’s. That makes them especially tough on Wimbledon’s grass courts.

They’ve added another dimension of athleticism. And they’ve raised the standard for everyone, which is one reason Hingis hasn’t won a Grand Slam event since the 1999 Australian Open. Lindsay Davenport and Mary Pierce, the French Open winner, can play this smashmouth tennis. The smaller Hingis is struggling to keep up.

“It used to be enough just with my abilities at that time, which was that I had good hands and I was quick,” Hingis said. “It has changed so much since the Williamses started playing better.

“I mean, they used to be out there. . . . They’re my age, they just didn’t play as steady and as consistent.”

The main reason they couldn’t follow up on Serena’s U.S. Open championship last year was Venus sat out six months because of a wrist injury and Serena had been sidelined since April because of a knee injury.

This is the first tournament they have entered simultaneously this year, and it’s starting to look as if it will take a Williams sister to beat a Williams sister.

“When you look at what Martina Navratilova did, she changed the game,” Richard Williams said. “But I never thought it would be this family that would change it again. Venus and Serena have changed it to the extent that you’re going to have to hit the ball, but you’re going to have to have speed. And in order to stay on the court, you’ve got to be in A-1 condition. You can’t fake it.”

And don’t bring the weak stuff around them.

Tuesday, Venus feasted on Hingis’ second serves, which usually came in at about 70 mph. By the third set, if Hingis didn’t get her first serve in, you could almost forward the point to Williams.

Williams’ own first serve topped out at 119 mph, and she blasted a 118-mph ace to finish off her 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 victory.

Venus’ long, lean body makes her style of play more visually striking. But right now Serena looks like the better player.

She beat Venus in their last meeting, last year in Germany. And now she’s coming off “one of the best matches I played in my career” and saying things such as, “I’m feeling very excited, very happy, I feel like I can make anything happen.”

Serena has lost only 13 games in her five matches to reach the semifinals. She smoked Raymond, 6-2, 6-0, Tuesday.

“She’s really been blazing her way past opponents,” Venus said. “No mercy.”

When asked to pick a favorite, Hingis initially went with Serena, although she later diplomatically added Venus.

Davenport said, “Serena has been playing the best tennis of anybody in the draw so far this tournament.”

Instead of making it tough on the rest of the tour, Thursday’s semifinal will be tough on the Williams family members when they try to determine a rooting interest.

“I can’t imagine,” Serena said. “I know I would be heartbroken if my little Jackie had to play my Starr. Those are my two dogs. I mean, yeah, sometimes a good competition, because Starr is faster . . . “

She stopped, and couldn’t keep from laughing. Richard can’t bring himself to watch. He said he will skip the match and go to a funeral for the friend of someone Williams just met.

“I want to go to the funeral because there’s nothing else for me to do,” he said. “I sure can’t drive the car, because I’d be on the wrong side of the road and get into an accident.”

Williams is still acting like a dad, though. Late Tuesday afternoon, when the sisters were paired for a doubles match, Richard handed a sandwich to a ballboy and instructed him to deliver it to his daughters during a changeover. Venus couldn’t have been more embarrassed if he had dropped off their lunch at high school homeroom, and she put the sandwich in her bag.

Richard won’t say who is the superior tennis player, and he denies coordinating the outcome of their head-to-head matches, as is the rumbling around the tour.

He will talk about their personalities.

“Venus is a proud individual, [proud] to be who Venus is, and I think she represents herself well,” Richard said. “Serena has a small weakness, in my opinion, because she wants to be perfect . . . and you can’t be perfect on this earth.”

No, if this were a perfect world the draw would bring the Williams sisters together in the Wimbledon final, not the semis.

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J.A. Adande can be reached at his e-mail address: j.a.adande@latimes.com