Venus Williams fighting with a plan in mind

— -- NEW YORK -- It's all Serena, all the time here. Her dominating presence never diminishes, even in the wake of sister Venus Williams' third-round 6-3, 6-4 dusting of 18-year-old Belinda Bencic -- the same Bencic who beat Serena in the Rogers Cup semifinals a few weeks ago.

Into the second week here for the first time since 2010 and into the fourth round in the third of four majors this year, Venus is emerging as a pretty good story herself.

"She just played too fast for me," said Bencic, who was born a month after Venus played her first US Open in 1997, when she reached the finals as a 17-year-old.

At 35, Venus, who doesn't care about "going down memory lane," is often asked about her two US Open titles, which she won in 2000 and 2001. But as she reeled off a 118-mph ace to close out the first set against Bencic, she could hardly avoid addressing the comparison between young Venus and, ahem, not-as-young Venus.

"I didn't really have a plan," Venus said of the old days. "Just fighting. Now I'm fighting with a plan. ... At that point, it's pretty fun because you don't think so much. I went for everything. You mess up a lot, so that's frustrating, too. But it's all new.

"It's a wonderful experience to have [had] that, but at the same time, now I feel like I have the tools to get the wins under my belt."

Other than a brief letdown in the second set Friday, when Venus surrendered a service break and trailed 4-1, she often looked like a younger version of herself.

Venus did not attempt to hide her awareness of a looming quarterfinal against Serena, which hinges on Venus getting past 152nd-ranked qualifier Anett Kontaveit in the fourth round and Serena defeating Bethanie Mattek-Sands on Friday night and then either Madison Keys or Agnieszka Radwanska.

"Yeah, of course, I have thought about it, and I would like us to have that moment so we can see how it is," Venus said. "We both have to get there. I think we both have a great opportunity to do so, but there are no givens. So the whole focus is, win your match one by one."

This season has been a bit of a mixed bag for Venus. She began the year with a title in Auckland and had quarterfinal finishes in four of her first five tournaments. But she went out in the first round against Sloane Stephens at the French Open and lost in the fourth round to Serena at Wimbledon.

There was no telling how Venus would fare in New York after winning just one match in the three subsequent hard-court tournaments leading up to the Open.

After squandering chances to serve out her first two matches here in straight sets against Monica Puig and Irina Falconi, losing second-set tiebreakers in both matches with a high number of unforced errors, Venus faced Bencic, a player she had defeated in all three previous meetings.

But neither that, nor the fact Bencic had handed Serena only her second defeat of the year in the semifinals of the Rogers Cup, factored in, according to Venus.

"Whoever is across the net, I want to win," she said." Whoever that person is, that's the day I want to win."

If it's about new challenges, Venus is more than open to the opportunity, having earned her bachelor's degree from Indiana University East last month.

"I almost went blind," she said, joking about the online accounting and finance courses. "It was always a goal of mine to get a business degree."

But Venus' focus is back on the court, and regardless of the number of years since her Open glory days, it still feels like old times.

"It's not new," she said. "[But] it's always exciting."