Venus Williams beats Coco Vandeweghe to reach Australian Open final
— -- MELBOURNE, Australia -- There's something to be said for experience over youth, but in the demanding sport of tennis, seniority isn't always a good thing.
Thursday's first semifinal at the Australian Open featured a pair of big-hitting Californians, 36-year-old Venus Williams opposite 25-year-old Coco Vandeweghe.
Williams, a seven-time Grand Slam champion, was playing in her 21st major semifinal, while Vandeweghe was in her first. The oddsmakers were unimpressed and installed Vandeweghe as a significant favorite.
Serving like it was 1999, Williams survived a briefly close encounter and advanced to the final with a 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-3 victory.
Williams is the oldest woman to reach an Australian Open final in the Open era and the second-oldest to play a Grand Slam final after 37-year-old Martina Navratilova at Wimbledon in 1994.
If her younger sister, No. 2-seeded Serena, manages to get by unseeded Mirjana Lucic-Baroni in the second semifinal, it will create the ninth all-Williams Grand Slam final.
The last one came at Wimbledon in 2009, which was Venus' last major final, too. Her only other Australian Open final came in 2003.
Thursday's match required 2 hours, 26 minutes, making it the longest women's match of the second week here.
And when it was finally over, after she converted her third match point, Williams tossed her racket and, for a spell, seemed to lose her mind. She did a madcap 720-degree spin (repeated a little later), did a little dance and then was consumed by laughter as her accomplishment began to dawn on her.
"Oh, my gosh, it means so much, mostly because she played so well," Williams said in her on-court interview, at one point dissolving into a giddy unknown language.
"Everybody has their moment in the sun; maybe mine has gone for a while. I've got nothing else to do."
A victory here by Serena -- or Roger Federer or Rafael Nadal, for that matter -- would not approach the magnitude of Venus title. It's almost a footnote now, but six years ago, she was diagnosed with Sjogren's syndrome, a debilitating auto-immune disease that curtailed her ability to practice and train.
But on Thursday, her serve was virtually unassailable. Williams stroked 11 aces -- one more than Vandeweghe -- and saved 12 of 13 break points.
"I would give anything," Venus said, "to see [Serena] across the net from me on Saturday."
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