Venus Williams receives sister’s counsel

Reporting from New York — 

Serena Williams is conflicted. If she watches her sister Venus on television, her stomach does flip-flops and she has to keep walking away. If Serena comes to the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center and sits in the player box at Arthur Ashe Stadium, her stomach settles down but her own longing to be playing causes her heart to flutter.

What Serena isn’t conflicted about is her pride. Her 30-year-old sister has made it to the U.S. Open semifinals without the loss of a set and after practically everyone had written Venus off.

After all, the last time Venus won a major not named Wimbledon was here in 2001.

After all, Venus didn’t play any matches after this year’s Wimbledon.

After all, Venus has sore knees and sometimes she doesn’t shout and yell and pump her fists.

But after all that, Venus, seeded third, will play Kim Clijsters on Friday in the featured match of the day. Clijsters, the defending champion who is seeded second, beat both Venus and Serena a year ago on her way to the U.S. Open title.

In the first women’s semifinal scheduled for the Ashe stadium court, top-seeded Caroline Wozniacki will take on seventh-seeded Vera Zvonareva.

Serena isn’t about to give away any coaching secrets, though she said she and Venus have analyzed each of Venus’ five wins here.

“I tell her what to do, what happened, how to perform better,” Serena said Thursday. “She likes to listen to me because we both play professional tennis. We understand the pressures and we’ve both played these people.”

Serena, who had to skip this Open after having foot surgery, said she doesn’t care if she sounds biased. “Obviously, Venus has been my greatest opponent I ever played against,” Serena said.

DOUBLES: Bob Bryan of Camarillo and Liezel Huber teamed to beat Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi of Pakistan and Kveta Peschke of the Czech Republic, 6-4, 6-4, in the mixed doubles finals. It was Bryan’s seventh mixed doubles major title.

Long Beach’s Vania King and her partner, Yaroslava Shvedova of Kazakhstan, seeded sixth, advanced to the women’s doubles final with a 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win over ninth-seeded Cara Black of South Africa and Anastasia Rodionova of Australia. King and Shvedova won the Wimbledon title last July.

FRIDAY’S FEATURED MATCHES: At 9 a.m. PDT at Ashe stadium, top-seeded Bob and Mike Bryan against 16th-seeded Rohan Bopanna and Qureshi in the men’s doubles final; at 10:30 a.m., first-seeded Wozniacki against seventh-seeded Vera Zvonareva; not before 12:30 a.m., third-seeded Venus Williams vs. second-seeded Clijsters.

diane.pucin@latimes.com

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