Venus Williams continued to roll back the years, moving into the semifinals of the 2017 Australian Open with a straight-set victory over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova on Tuesday.
Serena into quarters of AO 2017
Having struggled for so long to cope with her auto-immune disorder and father time catching up, Venus has found her mojo in recent times, with her form hitting great heights in Melbourne.
The American marched into the quarterfinals without dropping a set, and there was no way Venus was going to let that record slide, with the No.13 seed beating the 24th seeded Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 7-6 (7-3) to move into the semifinals of the Australian Open for the first time in 14 years.
"Oh my gosh I'm so excited," Venus said in a courtside interview. "I want to go further. I'm not happy just with this.
"I'm just so excited that I have another opportunity to."
As the score suggests, the match wasn't entirely straightforward, with Pavlyuchenkova breaking the Venus serve on four occasions, but the superior experience and talent proved to be enough in the end for the 36-year-old, who had 35 winners in the match, more than double her opponent.
Venus will now face fellow American Coco Vandeweghe in the semifinals, and the way the veteran has been playing, you wouldn't bet against her making it to the Australian Open final on Saturday, against, hopefully, her younger sister Serena, who is looking for a record 23rd Grand Slam win and regaining her No.1 ranking.
Vandeweghe continued her tremendous run in Melbourne, thumping the French Open champion Garbine Muguruza, seeded seventh, 6-4, 6-0 in an hour and 23 minutes to make it to her first Grand Slam semifinal.
Her place in the last four was never in doubt, with Vandeweghe, who fired 31 winners during her win, not giving away a single break point to Muguruza, who has now lost three out of four meetings against the American, until the final game, when the unseeded player was serving for the match.
In the first men's singles quarterfinal of the day, Stan Wawrinka brought all his big-match skills to the fore in dispatching Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. After a tight first set, Wawrinka pulled away to complete a 7-6 (7-2), 6-4, 6-3 win over the Frenchman.
Next up for Wawrinka is fellow Swiss Roger Federer, who eased past Mischa Zverev.
