Wimbledon - Women's:World number one Serena Williams continued her seemingly unstoppable progress towards a fourth Wimbledon title as she beat Petra Kvitova in straight sets to book her place in the final against Vera Zvonareva.
The American was made to work hard by the 20-year-old Czech, ranked 62 in the world, as the opening set went to a tie-break but in the end she ran out a 7-6 (7/5) 6-2 winner on Centre Court.
Williams had been expected to steam-roller the 20-year-old challenger but Kvitova came out firing and stunned her when a flashing service return secured her the break for a 4-2 lead.
Attacking the Williams second serve and hitting a series of stunning forehand winners, Kvitova won over the Centre Court crowd but the favourite clawed back the break to draw level at 4-4 and ultimately force the tie-break.
Two early forehand errors by Kvitova gave Williams a 4-0 lead in the breaker which she extended to 6-3. Despite Kvitova saving the first two set points,
Williams took the third with a booming serve.
Kvitova saved a break point in her first service game of the second set but suggestions the Czech would crumble proved unfounded as she went on to win her second service game of the set to love.
Williams finally grabbed her crucial break when Kvitova netted a backhand at 3-2, and went on to break again for 5-2 but only after coming off worse in an extraordinary 19-stroke rally on her first break point chance.
Even serving out for the match proved far from straightforward as Kvitova saved the first two match points against her before a lucky net cord break wrapped up victory for the three-time champion.
American insisted she had started the tournament in sluggish fashion, saying: "I didn't expect to get this far at the beginning of the tournament. I just felt off but I'm happy to still be here. I think maybe it's because I'm just Wimbledon-crazy."
On her final opponent Zvonareva, Williams added: "Vera's a great player. I've had some unbelievably tough matches against her so she's really tough. I feel like I've got nothing to lose going into the final, and neither does she."
Earlier in the day Zvonareva came back from a set down to claim victory over unseeded Bulgarian Tsvetana Pironkova.
The 21st seed from Russia looked to be heading for a shock defeat against the world number 82, who stunned Venus Williams in the previous round, but won 10 of the last 13 games to secure a 3-6 6-3 6-2 triumph.
Zvonareva, who will now be playing in her maiden Grand Slam final on Saturday, had never previously been past the fourth round at Wimbledon but has dropped only two sets in producing her best tennis since she was ranked as high as number five in February 2009.
She becomes only the third Russian Wimbledon finalist of the open era, after Olga Morozova and Maria Sharapova.
"I'm very excited," she said. "It's one of my dreams.
"It was very tough out there against a very tough opponent. I'm happy with the way I was able to hang in the match and turn it around."