Venus Williams Back in Semifinals at Australian Open

By ESPN

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.

Her victory produced yet another slice of history:

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 return for Venus to the Australian Open semis will be in the form of an all-American showdown against Coco Vandeweghe.

Vandeweghe beat French Open champion Garbine Muguruza 6-4, 6-0 to reach the first Grand Slam semifinal of her career.

"What a wonderful result," said Venus in her postmatch interview. "It's a great win for the U.S. To have that thought that there's going to be at least one U.S. player in the final is great for American tennis.

"I'm sure she's going to want to be in her first final. I'm going to want to be in only my second final here. So it's going to be a well-contested match."

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.

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.

Does Venus think she can win this thing?

"Why shouldn't I?" she said. "I try to believe. Should I look across the net and believe the person across the net deserves it more? This mentality is not how champions are made. I'd like to be a champion, in particular this year.

"The mentality I walk on court with is: I deserve this."