NEW YORK -- A year ago, Serena Williams watched from across the net here at the U.S. Open as Venus Williams won her second consecutive Grand Slam singles title. The match struck home, as it were, perhaps because the two sisters share a house in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

	Lindsay Davenport was happy to just be playing at the Open; being in the semifinals is a bonus.

"Everyone gets to that point where they're tired of losing," Venus, 22, said Wednesday. "You sit down and say, 'I'm not doing it anymore.' I got to that point also. I know what it's like. She has all that extra motivation this year and a lot of energy."

And it has manifested itself, largely at Venus' expense.

After losing the French Open final in June, Venus happily snapped pictures of the champion, Serena. After losing the Wimbledon final a month later, Venus wore a scowl; little sister had beaten her again, and this time it was hardly a Kodak memory.

Now, who has that extra motivation?

"I'm sure she wants to win, also," Serena, 20, said Tuesday. "I'm sure she wanted to win the French and Wimbledon, but it just didn't happen. I see Venus playing really well here."

Well, sort of. Venus had just been extended to three sets by Chanda Rubin in the Round of 16 and was back out on the practice court trying to get her forehand under control.

"That definitely tells you something," Serena mused. "I might need to go practice."

This, of course, is a frightening prospect for the rest of the women's game. The Williams sisters are already physically superior and now, thanks to their growing desire to beat each other, they are leaving the rest of the field in their rear-view mirrors.

If No. 2 seed Venus defeats No. 10 Amelie Mauresmo on Friday afternoon and No. 1 Serena follows with a victory over No. 4 Lindsay Davenport -- and there is no compelling reason to think they won't -- they will have monopolized their fourth Grand Slam final in the past five. There is no possible way to overstate this development: In a world of tennis players, these two sisters are the best, by a significant margin.

On Thursday, nearly 30 hours before the final is to be played, the WTA released a memo saying that if Serena and Venus play each other in the final, the winner will be No. 1 next week.

"I've said it, and I haven't hesitated," Davenport said. "They are definitely at a level above everyone else. Certainly, it's a huge challenge.

"Certainly, if I lose, I could walk away with that. I really don't want to. We've had a lot of tough matches here at The Open."

In fact, this is the fourth consecutive meeting between Davenport and Serena at the National Tennis Center, and they have all been matches of consequence. In 1999, Serena dispatched Davenport in three sets on the way to the very first Williams family Slam. In 2000, Davenport struck back, dusting Serena in the quarterfinals, but eventually lost in the final to ... Venus. Last year, Serena took a quarterfinal tilt with a rousing 6-3, 6-7 (7), 7-5 win, only to fall to Venus in the final.

To be fair, Davenport is not at full strength. She is still recovering from knee surgery and didn't play a tournament until late July. Since then, she's looked good, winning 17 of 21 matches, losing two of them to Venus. It appears the United States Tennis Association was correct in giving her the tournament's No. 4 seed, even though her ranking did not warrant it.

After losing the first set of her fourth-round match to Elena Bovina, Davenport rallied to win 12 of the last 14 games.

"It was a bit of a wake-up call, took me a while to get into it," Davenport said. "It's amazing. I really could have never said that this would happen. I mean, it was just impossible in my mind. I was just hoping to be able to play here. I really think this is one of my better achievements."

And so, Davenport finds herself playing with house money. Serena, too, seems to be operating without any discernible pressure. "Free and floaty" is how she described her mindset.

"I'm just trying to relax," Serena said. "When I won here in '99, came back in 2000, there was no way I was going to win. I was too tight, too tense. Even last year I was so tense.

"Now as time goes on, I'm learning not to be so tight and relax. When I relax, I just tend to play better. My dad has been trying to get me to do this for years. I'm finally being able to see it."

Venus' vision has been just fine, too. That loose second set in the Rubin match was her only misstep; she smoked Monica Seles in less than an hour Wednesday and hasn't lost to Mauresmo in four outings.

Mauresmo was encouraged that the past two matches, this year in Paris and Antwerp, featured tiebreakers. But while she artfully top-spinned Capriati into submission in the quarters, Williams is nearly four inches taller than Capriati.

"I'll try," Mauresmo said. "I'll give it a try."

With Capriati -- winner of the only three Grand Slam titles among the past nine that didn't go to the Williams sisters -- out of the tournament and Davenport not quite full strength, the only hope of scuttling an all-Williams final would seem to fall to Mauresmo.

"To me, people are maybe going to get bored of seeing always the same final," Mauresmo said. "But I can't put myself into the crowd's position. To me, it gets a little bit irritating, you know, because you want to go out there and try to beat these guys."

Greg Garber is a senior writer at ESPN.com.