The Williams sisters both crashed out of the Olympic singles tournament on Thursday, Venus losing to unseeded local hope Li Na in a shock defeat and Serena succumbing to Elena Dementieva.

Venus Williams went down 7-5, 7-5 to Li, ranked 42nd in the world, in the pressure cooker environment of a raucous centre court.

Venus' composure in the face of the boisterous home crowd, which heckled, shouted, chanted, and cried out during rallies and before serves, visibly wilted and Li took full advantage with a never-say-die display.

"Wow, I don't think you could see that in another country. They all wished me luck," Li said of the crowd.

"My family and my husband were sitting there and I had a lot of friends sitting behind me and that was a lot of motivation."

In the first set, Li crucially broke back for 4-3, and held her own service game. Williams rallied but Li again broke for 6-5 and kept her serve for the set.

The duo traded two breaks apiece at the start of the drama-filled second set.

But Williams kept finding the net at crucial points and, to the delight of her screaming fans, Li broke for 6-5.

Williams drilled an attempted pass into the net to hand Li victory and the Chinese a real hope of a first Olympic singles medal.

Li, the first Chinese woman to reach the world's top 20 and the first to win a WTA event, will play either world number one and top seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia or Russian number six seed Dinara Safina in the semi-finals.

Serena Williams' bid for a first Olympic singles gold also went up in smoke after she lost to Russian number five seed Elena Dementieva.

Number four seed Williams, who won doubles gold with her sister Venus at the Sydney Games but missed Athens four years ago through injury, went down 6-3, 4-6, 3-6 to this year's Wimbledon semi-finalist.

"I didn't serve really well," said Serena. "It was what it was. It hasn't sunk in yet."

Dementieva, who also won Olympic singles silver in 2000, will play her ninth seeded compatriot Vera Zvonareva for a place in the final after her 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 defeat of unseeded Austrian Sybille Bammer.

"I'm very excited about being in the semi-finals of the Olympic Games," said Dementieva. "I felt like I was playing well today and I hope to continue playing like that.

"She started really very well. I was just trying to stay positive, trying to fight and I had nothing to lose. I was trying to play more aggressive and that was the key to the match."

Williams opened strongly, racing out to a 4-1 lead to set up the first set.

The second set saw Williams break Dementieva in her third game, but the Russian rebounded strongly, breaking back twice. Williams double faulted to hand her the set 6-4.

The American found herself 5-1 down in the third set after the Russian's energetic game paid dividends against William's power plays, and Dementieva soon had it wrapped up at 6-3 for the match.

AFP

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