Serena Williams loses singles match

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BEIJING — Serena Williams will not meet sister Venus in the Olympic tennis final, after all.

The anticipation of that dream final evaporated here Thursday night on the racket of Elena Dementieva of Russia, who rallied for a 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 win and a spot in the semifinals.

Williams, runner-up to sister Venus at Wimbledon, was seeded fourth here, Dementieva fifth.

Williams, who won the doubles gold medal with Venus in 2000 in Sydney and is still in the running in that category here, battled back in the third set, after trailing 5-0. She served it to 5-3, but then Dementieva, who has struggled over her career with a shaky serve, cranked in three first serves at 5-3 and played a clever match point to win it.

She brought Williams in with a perfectly placed drop shot. Williams tracked it down, but Dementieva didn’t give her time to get set at the net and sent a hard ground stroke right at her. Williams was a split-second late and volleyed it wide.

They had played four times previously, and Williams had won three of those. But their last meeting, something Williams noted in her postmatch news conference Wednesday night, was in Moscow on hard courts and Dementieva had won, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1. Their previous meeting was in the semifinals of the women’s event in Los Angeles in 2004, won by Williams in straight sets.

-- Bill Dwyre