Venus Williams beats Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, returns to Aussie semis after 14 years

ByGREG GARBER
January 23, 2017, 11:41 PM

— -- MELBOURNE, Australia -- Amid all of the back-to-the-future, glory-days-revisited hysteria down here, the greatest revelation has been Venus Ebony Starr Williams.

The last time she made the semifinals of the Australian Open was 2003 -- the same year Roger Federer won his first Grand Slam; the same year Australian wild card? Destanee Aiava?turned 3 years old.

On an exceedingly pleasant Tuesday at Melbourne Park, Williams defeated Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 7-6 (3) -- and, 14 years later, soared back into the semifinals. There was, not surprisingly, some history made too.

Williams, at 36, is the oldest woman to reach the final four here in the Open era.

"Oh my gosh, I'm so excited," Venus said in her on-court interview, her voice rising. "I want to go further. I'm so happy to be in a position to go further."

The first semifinal in 14 years at the Australian Open for Venus will be an all-American showdown against Coco Vandeweghe.

Vandeweghe beat French Open champion Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-0 in Tuesday's second quarterfinal match of the women's draw to reach the first Grand Slam semifinal of her career.

Swinging for the fences, as always, Venus kept the pressure on the No. 24-seeded Pavlyuchenkova, who was a two-time junior Australian Open champion. The Russian made life difficult for herself, serving nine double faults, two of them in the critical second-set tiebreaker.

Pavlyuchenkova has reached the quarterfinals of all four majors but failed to advance in any of them.

Venus, who won her 50th match at the Australian Open, has yet to drop a set.?

And to think that a year ago, Venus lost in the first round here, and as recently as three weeks ago, she withdrew from a tournament in Auckland, New Zealand, with a sore right arm. That caused Venus a great deal of anxiety coming into this tournament, she said.