There is a carefree openness in the way Kim Clijsters engages in interviews. It's a quality you don't often see emerge from the usually guarded locker-room.

She sits behind the mic after each match and banters away unchecked - in a manner diametrically opposed to that of her boyfriend, Lleyton Hewitt - charming and benign.

She is a 19-year-old with a sense of place and with a perspective that may stem from the fact that this is one celebrity player whose father was once more famous than she is now. The Belgian footballer of the year in 1988, Leo Clijsters, brought up his children in the glare of media attention. Rather than shun that light, Clijsters has met it head on and has backed it up with a modern game that most here believe is closest to that of Serena Williams. Clijsters is quite a package.

Her on-court speed and physical strength may not match that of the world number one, but nor is she expected to be startled by the blaze of Williams' game in the same way Amelie Mauresmo was in the quarter-finals. As L'Equipe put it on their front page after the carnival of publicity collapsed around the French hope's doomed match with Williams, "Mauresmo Retour sur Terre" - returns to earth.

Number two seed Clijsters first has to deal with the young Russian Nadia Petrova, ranked 76, in today's semi-final. The 20-year-old from Moscow, who will take confidence from having beaten the woman (Zvronereva) who beat Venus, has become the 134th woman player to earn over $1 million in career prize money. But that will hardly appease her competitive urge.

"She's obviously playing very well," says Clijsters. "She's doing whatever she wants with the ball. She can go down the line, whatever, and she serves well. But I'll be very aggressive, make her move. I still think that is maybe one of her weaknesses, her movement."

Candidly telling the world about the weakness of an opponent is a strategy that even the occasionally insensitive Williams avoids. But Clijsters was not being nasty, just offering an honest assessment of her opponent's strengths, weaknesses, the entire package, and how she will try to counter it. Pointlessly "dissing" Petrova's mobility is not part of the equation.

But even Clijsters, despite her 6-2, 6-1 dismissal of Conchita Martinez in the quarter-final, is not so myopic as to be unaware that behind Petrova looms Williams, despite little Justine Henin-Hardenne standing in the American's way in the other semi-final.

"She (Serena) can put it (her game) to another level," admits Clijsters. "That's why she's won the last (four) Grand Slams. Because she lost to Amelie last week in Rome, she would play better just to get revenge. She can do that."

Clijsters faced Williams at the Australian Open earlier this year and built a 5-1 lead. But the American came back to win the match by raining down that unique firestorm of unreturnable serves and groundstrokes that require a Surgeon General's health warning. She was able to raise her game to a different physical level and to a greater intensity.

"In Australia, she just raised her level so much higher," says Clijsters. "In the beginning, in that match, she made a lot of mistakes. I don't think I did anything different from 5-1 until she won the match. She just didn't make any mistakes any more. She was hitting winners off my first serves."

Henin-Hardenne will take into the semi-final the comfort of knowing she will replace Venus as the world number three. Henin-Hardenne is another of those rare individuals who holds a Williams' scalp. In fact, the 20-year-old Belgian is one of only four current players to have beaten both Serena, Venus and Jennifer Capriati, the others being Lindsay Davenport, Monica Seles and Clijsters.

"Last time I beat her (Serena), I know she doesn't like that," says Henin-Hardenne, who is quietly defiant. "She's gonna have great motivation to beat me again because she lost in Charleston. So I know that. Serena will tell you that she played very badly in Charleston. This is what she thinks. I have nothing else to add. But I know what all the strengths and weaknesses of Serena are. I will feel a little intimidated, but I will try to have a positive attitude," she says.

Dropping just one set thus far to Patty Schnyder should encourage that. The thing is, Williams has dropped none.