Venus Williams returns to Australian Open finals against sister Serena

Indeed, if she hands Serena the initiative and allows her to dictate the flow of their rallies, the younger Williams’ powerful groundstrokes and aggressive shot-making will punish her. They’re competing against each other Saturday at the Australian Open finals.

Williams is the oldest woman to make a grand slam semi-final since legendary compatriot Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon in 1994.

The Williams’ youngest is looking for her 23rd Grand Slam title, leaving her the only professional record holder before Steffi Graf (22) and closer to Australian Margaret Court’s all-time record. As a team, they have won fourteen Grand Slam titles and three Olympic gold medals.

“I just feel like, no matter what happens, we’ve won”.

It was her third win over the 34-year-old, in their first match since meeting twice as teenagers many years ago.

In the male singles category, Rafael Nadal was due to play the rising Bulgarian star Grigor Dmitrov, who is coming off a tournament victory in Brisbane.

The two will play for the Australian Open title on Saturday at Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne.

An irrepressible Serena Williams kept her record-breaking Grand Slam dream alive yesterday to set up a Australian Open semi-final against someone she last faced in 1998. It was the first of Serena’s six Australian titles. The last All-Williams final was 2009 at Wimbledon, which is the last time Venus reached a major final.

Venus said she was not interested in the past, only the future and the immediate threat posed by the aggressive Vandeweghe. “Maybe mine has gone on a while”.

Williams hammered a forehand victor to bring up three match points and Pavlyuchenkova surrendered the match meekly with her ninth double-fault.

“I’m sure she’s going to want to be in her first final”.

“I missed a lot today, I got a little frustrated, then I told myself “Serena, stop complaining don’t be a Baby-rena out on court there”, she said.

“She’s basically my world and my life”.

“I thought it was pretty good”, she said, crediting her coach Craig Kardon with putting together a winning strategy. But I think she’s taller than me.”Other than that, I’ve always wanted to play her”.

Things got worse for the Spaniard when she dropped the first game of the second set on her serve, with Vandeweghe crunching another forehand victor down the line to get the break. As Serena continued to stake her claim as one of the sport’s best ever, for a long time it looked like Venus might bow out of tennis altogether.