Australian Open: Venus Williams advances to semi-finals with win over Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova

Venus Williams has reached the Australian Open semi-finals, with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Russian Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova at Melbourne Park on Monday.

This means Williams’ 2017 Australian Open campaign is her best since 2003, the last time she reached the last four in the year’s opening grand slam event.

That year she was runner-up to her sister Serena Williams – the pair are drawn to meet in this year’s final if they continue to win.

Pavlyuchenkova broke Williams’ serve in the third game of the match, but was immediately broken back.

The Russian broke again to lead 4-3, but Williams then reeled off the next three games to take the set 6-4.

The second set was almost a mirror image of the first – the American 13th seed overcame a break in the third game, and came back from 3-4 down to lead 5-4.

This time games went on serve until the tie-break, where the pair swapped early mini-breaks. The key point came at 3-3, where Williams drilled a forehand winner down the line to gain the advantage.

She served out to earn three match points, and Pavlyuchenkova then served a double fault to end the match in one hour 47 minutes.

Williams will now face either fellow American Coco Vandeweghe or Spain’s Garbine Muguruza for a place in the final.

More to come.

This post originally appeared on ABC News.