MELBOURNE, Australia —
Venus Williams has reached her 21st Grand Slam semifinal, her first at the Australian Open in 14 years.
CoCo Vandeweghe advanced to her first major semifinal, anywhere, beating Grand Slam winners in back-to-back rounds. The one sure outcome when they meet this week will be an American in the final at Melbourne Park.
The 36-year-old Williams beat No. 24-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 7-6 (3) on Tuesday, becoming the oldest player to reach the Australian Open women’s semifinals in the Open era.
She’ll be meeting a confident Vandeweghe, who dictated play against French Open champion Garbine Muguruza in a 6-4, 6-0 quarterfinal win.
The No. 35-ranked Vandeweghe upset top-ranked Angelique Kerber, who won the Australian and U. S. titles last year, in the fourth round. She followed it up with another commanding win, the 10th in her career against a Top 10 player.
Vandeweghe saved the only break point she faced in the first set with an ace, and only conceded 10 points in the 28-minute second set. Of her 31 winners, 14 were from her powerful forehand side.
“Once I got rolling in the second, it was like a freight train,” she said, “You couldn’t stop it.”
In the first men’s quarterfinal, U. S Open champion Stan Wawrinka beat Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6 (2), 6-4, 6-3. Wawrinka will play the winner of the Tuesday night match between Roger Federer and Mischa Zverev.
It was Wawrinka’s fourth win in a row over Tsonga and the first meeting between the pair at a Grand Slam other than the French Open, where they had played three times, with Wawrinka holding a 2-1 edge.
