Venus, Serena Williams To Meet In All-Williams Australian Open Final

Johanna Konta admitted she broke down in tears after her Australian Open ended at the hands of Serena Williams. Venus took two and a half hours to overcome CoCo Vandeweghe in three sets, while Serena took just 50 minutes to despatch Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, dropping three games in a 6-2 6-1 demolition. “My big sister, she’s basically my world and my life”.

Before leaving centre court she took her phone from her bag, taking a few “selfies” with the capacity crowd in the background. “It’s a wonderful story”, said Williams. “It was a heartfelt match. So it’s going to be a well-contested match”.

The last all-Williams final came at Wimbledon in 2009, which also was Venus’ last major final.

“Maybe I play better nervous and scared”, she said.

On the men’s side, 30-year-old Rafael Nadal dominated third-seeded Milos Raonic 6-4, 7-6 (7), 6-4 on Wednesday to join 35-year-old Roger Federer and 31-year-old Stan Wawrinka in the semifinals. “I think there are so many things I can learn from that, so many things I can look to improve on, also acknowledge some things that I did well”. In that moment there is no do-over, there’s no retake, there is no voice-over. The one sure outcome when they meet this week will be an American in the final at Melbourne Park.

If Serena wins, it will be her 23rd Grand Slam title, which would set a record for singles titles in the Open era.

“Clearly these matches are challenging, physically, mentally, all of that”. “I don’t shy away from a challenge necessarily”.

“If I’m here, that’s why I’m here”. I’m not happy just with this.

It will be one of the sport’s oldest tournament finals in a long time.

The defeat was tough to take for Vandeweghe, whose temper has been known to manifest itself upon her racquets, though they survived on Thursday.

“I feel good that I won”, Venus said after the match. To see her be able to never give up actually is super inspiring to me. In 2003, Venus Williams finished runner-up to Serena in the Australian Open final.

The No. 35-ranked Vandeweghe upset top-ranked Angelique Kerber, who won the Australian and US titles previous year, in the fourth round.

Only looking at Grand Slam (Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon, and U.S. Open) appearances, Serena and Venus have played each other 15 times including their upcoming match on Saturday.

“It is definitely 100 per cent the best-case scenario that I could have ever dreamt of”.

Williams made her professional debut as an unranked wildcard in 1994 at a Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) tournament in Oakland, CA – up the coast from her home in Compton.