Serena Reaches Aussie Semis With 18th Straight Win Over Sharapova

It wasn’t the best start for world number one Serena Williams, but the end result was just the same on Tuesday, as the American defeated fifth-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova for the 18th consecutive time with a 6-4, 6-1 victory to reach the Australian Open semifinals.

Sharapova looked sharp early on, opening up a 2-0 advantage to start the match off, but from there, it was all Serena. After snatching back the break point, Serena had to fight off break points at 4-4, and when she did, broke Sharapova in the next game with an aggressive volley at the net to close out the opening set.

And the second set belonged to Serena. She won the first five games of the set, and while Sharapova avoided the bagel with a hold at serve for 1-5, Serena closed it out with an ace on her first match point to move past Sharapova and into the semifinals in Melbourne.

“I’ve been playing this whole week aggressively, but I didn’t start out playing that way today,” said Serena. “I just knew after the first set that I wanted to start playing the way I have been, that got me to the quarterfinals, so I was just trying to do that.”

While Serena may not have started aggressively, she certainly finished as such. She hit 31 winners to Sharapova’s 11 and was far better and more efficient at the net.

She improves her overall record against Sharapova to 19-2, and advances to a semifinal with clash with Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska.

The fourth-seed cruised into the semis with a 6-1, 6-3 win over 10th seeded Spaniard Carla-Suarez-Navarro. Radwanska broke Suarez-Navarro in the match’s opening game and never looked back, winning in one hour and 22 minutes to reach the second Australian Open semifinal of her career.

“I’m very, very pleased,” said Radwanska. “I knew it was going to be tough. I tried to be aggressive, to focus on my serve and I think I did a good job.”

Serena is 8-0 all-time against Radwanska, but the two haven’t played since 2013.

In women’s doubles, the top-seeded duo of Martina Hingis & Sania Mirza won their 34th consecutive match on Tuesday, holding off 12th seeds Anna-Lena Groenefeld & Coco Vandeweghe 6-2, 4-6, 6-1 to reach the semifinals. They will take on the 13th seeds Juliana Goerges & Karolina Pliskova for a spot in the Aussie Open finals.