MELBOURNE, Australia \u2014
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\u2019s semifinals in the Open era.
She\u2019ll 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.
\u201cOnce I got rolling in the second, it was like a freight train,\u201d she said, \u201cYou couldn\u2019t stop it.\u201d
In the first men\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.
Wawrinka said he began to move better after the first set.
\u201cI started to be more aggressive from the first shot, I think that made the difference,\u201d Wawrinka said, adding that he\u2019ll have dinner in front of a television set watching the Federer-Zverev match.
Williams has advanced through the tournament without dropping a set, and isn\u2019t ready to stop in the semifinals in the latest installment of her career revival.
\u201cIt\u2019s wonderful to start the year out with this appearance,\u201d said Williams, who hadn\u2019t reached the semifinals in Australia since 2003, the year she lost the final to her sister, Serena. \u201cI want to go further. I\u2019m not happy just with this. But I\u2019m so happy to be in the position to like go further.\u201d
Williams didn\u2019t reach the quarterfinals at any of the Grand Slams from 2011 \u2014 when she was diagnosed with the Sjogren\u2019s syndrome, which saps energy and causes joint pain \u2014 and the 2015 Australian Open. She lost in the first round here last year, but returned to reach the semifinals at Wimbledon and finished the year ranked 17th.
Vandeweghe also lost in the first round here last year, and at the U. S. Open in September, but has found her form in Melbourne this year. As well as the wins over Kerber and Muguruza, she has had wins over No. 15-seeded Roberta Vinci and Eugenie Bouchard, who reached the semifinals here and the final at Wimbledon in 2014.
Williams said the quarterfinal results were a \u201cgreat win for the U. S.\u201d
\u201cI\u2019m sure (Vandeweghe is) going to want to be in her first final,\u201d Williams said. \u201cI\u2019m going to want to be in only my second final here. So it\u2019s going to be a well-contested match.\u201d
Williams dropped four service games against Pavlyuchenkova, but she responded each time by breaking back. In the tiebreaker, she trailed 3-1 before winning the last six points \u2014 clinching the match on Pavlyuchenkova\u2019s double-fault.
With her run to the Wimbledon semifinals last year, Williams became the oldest woman since Martina Navratilova (at 37 years, 258 days) in 1994 to advance so far at a major.
With Serena Williams in the quarterfinals and targeting a record 23rd major, there\u2019s also the prospect of another sisters final in Australia.
Williams isn\u2019t looking across the net, though, saying that\u2019s not what makes a champion. She is focused on Grand Slam title No. 8.
\u201cI try to believe,\u201d she said. \u201cI\u2019d like to be a champion, in particular this year. The mentality I walk on court with is: \u2018I deserve this\u2019.\u201d
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