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LONDON -- Venus Williams sighed at the reporters question.After getting to her first Wimbledon semifinal since 2009, and first at any Grand Slam tournament since a year later, she was asked what she learned in recent times, while dealing with an energy-sapping disease and a series of earlier-than-usual exits from majors.Its hard to say just one lesson, she began. Its easy to be afraid; you have to let fear go. Another lesson is you just have to believe in yourself. You just have to. Theres no way around it. Youve got to believe in yourself. No matter how things are stacked against you, you just have to, every time.Williams never lost that belief, the self-confidence that she still could compete at the highest level, the certainty that it made no sense to give up, to retire from the tour.The good part is, I always felt like I had the game. This is always a plus, when you know you have the game, said Williams, who owns seven Grand Slam titles, including five at the All England Club, but none since 2008. So you just have to keep working until things fall into place.At age 36, they have.On Friday at Wimbledon, Williams will meet No. 4-seeded Angelique Kerber of Germany for a berth in the final. Kerber has won three of their previous five matchups.The American is the oldest woman to participate in a major semifinal since Martina Navratilova did it at Wimbledon in 1994 at age 37.Its nice to see, because she puts in the work, said David Witt, Williams coach. She hasnt been back, but not because of her play. Any given tournament, shes capable of beating anybody in the tournament. Its just a matter of winning six, seven matches in a row and keeping your level of play at a high level.Someone who knows all about that is Williams younger sister, No. 1-seeded Serena, who faces 50th-ranked Elena Vesnina in Fridays other semifinal. If Vesnina -- who has never so much as taken a set off Serena in five previous meetings -- were to pull off the upset, she would be the first unseeded woman to reach the Wimbledon final in the Open era, which began in 1968.The 29-year-old Russian had never been past the fourth round at a major before this week.Serena, meanwhile, is bidding for her seventh Wimbledon championship and, of even more significance, her 22nd Grand Slam trophy overall, which would equal Steffi Graf for the most in the Open era (Margaret Court holds the all-time mark of 24).Serena has come close to drawing even with Graf before: At the U.S. Open last September, she lost to Roberta Vinci in the semifinals while aiming for a calendar-year Grand Slam; at the Australian Open in January, she lost to Kerber in the final; at the French Open in June, she lost to Garbine Muguruza in the final.Way back in 1999, the Williams sisters both reached the semifinals of the U.S. Open. Now here they are, almost 17 full years later, both in the semifinals of a Grand Slam tournament for the 11th time. On all 10 previous occasions, one or the other took home the trophy.If both win Thursday, they would play each other on Saturday in what would be the siblings ninth meeting in a Grand Slam final and fifth at Wimbledon.For Serena, it would mean shes participated in the last three major title matches, seven of the past eight.For Venus, it would be her first Grand Slam final since 2009, when she lost at Wimbledon to -- guess who? -- Serena.With everything shes been through, I think its built a ton of character in her, Serena said, and in me, just by being around her.---Follow Howard Fendrich on Twitter at http://twitter.com/HowardFendrich Cheap NFL Jerseys China . - Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie never doubted he would bring back coach Dennis Allen for a third year despite back-to-back 4-12 records. NFL Stitched Jerseys .S. hockey team after paying his dues as an NHL general manager for more than three decades and giving up a lot of his free time to help USA Hockey. http://www.stitchedwholesalejerseys.com/ . The parade and rally were held to celebrate the Saskatchewan Roughriders 45-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Sunday in the CFLs championship game. Nike NFL Jerseys China . LOUIS -- Mike Smith is used to facing plenty of shots, so this was nothing new. Discount Football Jerseys . Pirlo limped out of Sundays 1-0 win over Udinese after just 13 minutes. Juventus says Pirlo underwent tests on Monday which revealed he has "a second-degree lesion to the collateral medial ligament in his right knee. Roger Federer suffered a freak knee injury while giving his twin daughters a bath during the January Australian Open and called it a year by July. Rafael Nadal went missing from action after a wrist injury. Maria Sharapova admitted in March that she tested positive for a banned drug and faced suspension. Then Serena and Venus Williams learned their personal medical records with the World Anti-Doping Agency had been hacked -- allegedly by a cyber-warfare group with ties to Sharapovas native Russia.?Then 2016 got even weirder in tennis as the year went on. Its never a good thing for a sport when theres more news made in press releases, news conferences and social media announcements than on the field of play.But 2016 was a year of drama for mens and womens tennis that saw nearly all of its most enduring stars involved in some sort of turmoil.Nick Krygios got suspended for tanking a match in Shanghai and was ordered to get therapy, and Novak Djokovic saw his internal gyroscope go haywire due to private issues he still has never elaborated on. After winning six titles the first half of the year, including his first French Open, Djokovic won only one event afterward, ripping open his shirts and crying in frustration along the way. Then on Dec. 6, the Serbian star ended his three-year stint with coach Boris Becker, who presided over Djokovics streak of making nine finals in the past 12 Slams and his two-year stay at No. 1.Djokovic said they parted amicably. A day later, Becker criticized him in a Sky News interview, saying: He didnt spend as much time on the practice court in the last six months that he should. Success like this doesnt happen by pushing a button. Success like this doesnt happen by just showing up at a tournament. You have to work your bottom off because your opposition does the same.Just this past Thursday, yet another reminder of how many hits tennis had to survive as an institution resurfaced: Tennis Australia announced it had hired two more full-time investigators and cut ties with major advertiser William Hill, the sports betting agency, to underline its seriousness about combating the match-fixing and betting issues that surfaced during the Australian Open last January via a BuzzFeed/BBC report.That story alleged there has been widespread match-fixing in mens tennis and that authorities in the sport ignored it. The report did not name names but said 16 men who have been ranked in the top 50, including a US Open champion, could be involved. And Djokovic caused a further stir by sharing a story days later about how a member of his team had been approached in 2007 and offered $200,000 if Djokovic would throw a first-round match in St. Petersburg, Russia. Said Djokovic: It made me feel terrible because I dont want to be anyhow linked to this. For me, thats an act of unsportsmanship, a crime in sport, honestly. I dont support it. I think there is no room for it in any sport.Sharapova cried foul, too -- albeit for a different reason. In March, she called a news conference in Los Angeles and broke the news herself that she was among the many Eastern European athletes who tested positive for meldonium.She admitted she had continued taking the drug into February because she was unaware meldonium was newly banned as of Jan. 1. The irony? Sharapovas honesty ruined her chances of getting immediately reinstated a few months later when world doping authorities admitted they didnt fully understand how long meldonium stayed in a persons system.Many athletes who said nothing were thus allowed to return to competition because WADA couldnt prove they had ingested meldonium before or after it was banned. Sharapova had no such out. She held her tongue during all the back-and-forth as her appeal waited to be heard by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. When her recommended two-year ban by the International Tennis Federation (ITF) was reduced to 15 months by CAS, Sharapova bitterly blasted tennis officials for the heavy price she paid. The former world No. 1 missed the years last three majors, and was eclipsed by Serena Williams as the top-earning female athlete in the world. Even with the suspension reduction, the 29-year-old Sharapova wont be eligible to play again until just weeks before the start of the French Open in late May. She has promised to return -- with a vengeance.Victoria Azarenka, who made the surprise announcement in July that she and her boyfriend are expecting their first child by the end of this year, could join Sharapova back on tour around the same time. Azarenka has said shes inspired by the example of Kim Clijsters, who won three Slams after giving birth to her first child.Taken all together, the 2016 tennis year has been a lot to digest.But it also has conspired to make 2017 look like it could be one of tennis most wonderfully unpredictable years in decades after years of hegemony at the top.And thats not all bad.Serena owwned the No.dddddddddddd 1 ranking a record-tying 186 consecutive weeks before Germanys Angelique Kerber overtook her in September while winning the US Open. To understand just how remarkable Williams run was, consider this: Williams had more title wins (24) than match losses (19) in those three-plus years she stayed No. 1.And yet, though Williams made the finals of the 2016 Australian and French Open, and won Wimbledon, she played only eight events and 44 singles matches all told -- none of them after September. Her own coach, Patrick Mouratoglou, said Williams had a bad year by her standards, even if she was battling shoulder and knee ailments part of the time.Williams, now 35, wasnt quite as downbeat as Mouratoglou about the big picture. After losing in the semis of the US Open, Williams actually pushed back irritably when a reporter suggested she was too fatigued to win, bristling Im a professional and If I cant turn around after 24 hours and play again, then I shouldnt be on tour. Fatigue had absolutely nothing to do with it.If I was tired, I should definitely get into a new career.The show of pride was good to see.Scotlands Andy Murray roared to the No. 1 ranking for the first time by the end of the year, too, when he won the Paris Masters in early November and then quashed Djokovics attempt to wrest the top spot back. After years of hearing questions about whether he belonged in the Big Four along with Federer, Nadal and Djokovic, the 29-year-old Murray insisted he never really expected to slingshot past them and someday sit atop the world. But he did it, all right, by decisively beating Djokovic at the year-ending ATP Finals in London to become the oldest first-time No. 1 since Australias John Newcombe accomplished it at age 30 in 1974.Unbelievable, Murray said.Puerto Ricos Monica Puig expressed similar astonishment after she was the surprise winner at the Rio Olympics, giving her country its first gold medal at any Summer Games. Puig beat Garbine Muguruza along the way, the young Spaniard who upset Serena in the French Open final to win her first major.But from start to finish, the 28-year-old Kerber was the most consistent female player of 2016. She knocked off Williams for the Australian Open title, lost to her in the Wimbledon final and then finished her climb to No. 1 by beating big-serving Karolina Pliskova for the US Open championship after Pliskova upset Williams in a semifinal shocker. Along the way, Kerber admitted frankly that she initially struggled with the heightened expectations that came from winning her first career Slam in Australia, saying, The pressure after is actually more. Not less.But after winning in New York, Kerber insisted she no longer felt out of her depth.I think Im ready, yeah, to have this pressure on my shoulder, Kerber said. Being No. 1, of course now everybody will try to beat me and have nothing to lose. [But] I will try to take this challenge and try staying as long as I can there.Argentinas Juan Martin del Potro rivaled Murray and Kerber as the feel-good tennis story of 2016 with some snowballing success in the last half of the year that suggested the wrist problems that plagued him since he won the 2009 US Open -- still his only Slam title -- might finally, blessedly be over.First, del Potro upset Stan Wawrinka at Wimbledon, then backed it up by beating Djokovic and Nadal in Rio on the way to winning the silver medal. At the US Open a few weeks later, del Potro advanced to the quarterfinals before Wawrinka defeated him in a late-night match in Arthur Ashe Stadium. But the extraordinary scene still had people talking days later. Fans brought del Potro to tears when they began fondly chanting his name near the end of his Wawrinka loss, just to let him know how happy they were to see him back.From there, it was on to Davis Cup play for del Potro, where he defeated Murray in singles to push Argentina past defending champion Britain in the semifinal round. Then he roared back from a 2-0-set deficit against Croatias Marin Cilic in Zagreb to spark Argentinas second-day comeback to its first Davis Cup title in five trips to the final. Once again, del Potro cried for joy. What a year it had been.I was very close to never playing again, he said, recalling all the setbacks after each of his three wrist surgeries. And, well, here I am.That image of del Potro and his teammates celebrating in Croatia as confetti rained down is a nice grace note to linger on heading into 2017.Federer and Nadal, Djokovic and del Potro, Serena and Sharapova are among the many megastars plotting blockbuster comebacks. If they all return to top form at once, 2017 could be yet another year of fireworks -- but for far happier reasons, and with spectacular results.Im looking forward to it, Kerber said. cheap falcons jerseys cheap ravens jerseys cheap bills jerseys cheap bears jerseys cheap bengals jerseys cheap cowboys jerseys cheap lions jerseys cheap texans jerseys cheap colts jerseys cheap jaguars jerseys cheap chiefs jerseys cheap rams jerseys cheap dolphins jerseys cheap vikings jerseys cheap saints jerseys cheap giants jerseys cheap jets jerseys cheap eagles jerseys cheap steelers jerseys cheap 49ers jerseys ' ' '