Venus will next face the winner of the Garbine Muguruza-Coco Vandeweghe tie for spot in the final.
Venus Williams (Photo: AFP)
American veteran Venus Williams marched into the semifinals of the Australian Open, defeating Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 7-6(3) in their women’s singles quarterfinal, to mark best run in the Slam since losing the 2003 final to sister Serena Williams.
The 36-year-old made a mockery of her age, demolishing the 24th-seed in less than two hours, becoming the oldest semi-finalist at a Grand Slam since Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon in 1994.
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Despite being broken early in the first set, the 13th-seed bounced back with a break of her own to take a 3-2 lead before Pavlyuchenkova fought back to take lead 4-3.
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Williams then showcased why she is a seven-time Slam winner, reeling of the next three games to take the set in under 40 minutes.
Both players broke each other several times in a see-sawing second set before Williams accelerated in the resulting tie-break and with a tame double fault, the Russian lost the game.
She will next face the winner of the Garbine Muguruza-Coco Vandeweghe tie for spot in the final.
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