Venus and Serena Williams served their way into the U.S. Open quarter-finals with impressive straight-sets victories Sunday, setting up a possible clash between the American sisters in the final four.
Venus Williams was not prepared to even countenance the suggestion she could potentially meet younger sister Serena in the Australian Open final after she advanced to the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 7-5 victory over Mona Barthel on Sunday.
Venus and Serena Williams won the 2009 Australian Open women's doubles title, beating Slovakia's Daniela Hantuchova and Japan's Ai Sugiyama, 6-3, 6-3 in the final in Melbourne on Friday. The tenth-seeded American sisters captured their eighth Grand Slam doubles title in the process, having also won the Australian Open in 2001 and 2003.
Venus and Serena Williams kept up their semi-final date with commanding victories over Vera Zvonareva and Anastasia Rodionova respectively at the WTA Tier II Bangalore Open on Friday. Venus won 6-4, 6-3, while Serena was through at 6-1, 6-4.
World No 1 Serena Williams and her sister Venus tried their hand at cricket with the Melbourne Renegades players on a hotel roof top on Thursday.
The US faces the Czech Republic in the first round from April 26-27.
Venus Williams stands in the way of younger sister Serena's bid for a calendar-year Grand Slam after reaching the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 6-1 rout of Estonian teenager Anett Kontaveit on Sunday.
Victoria Azarenka is relishing her return to Melbourne Park as double defending champion and while Serena Williams is a hot favourite to deny her a hat-trick of titles, the Belarusian says she will not focus solely on the challenge from the World No 1.
Coco Gauff has released videos protesting against killings of African-Americans in the US amid widespread outrage following the death of George Floyd, an unarmed Black man in police custody in Minneapolis.
Venus Williams has always taken her role as big sister to Serena very seriously but never before had she thought a bit of family intuition would end up saving the life of the 13-times Grand Slam champion.
Sania-Martina will next face ninth seeds Yung-Jan Chan and Hao-Ching Chan of Chinese Taipei, who rallied to beat unseeded Romanians Irina-Camelia Begu and Raluca Olaru 5-7, 6-1, 7-6 (4).
With Serena bidding to become just the fourth woman to win all four grand slams in the same year, the US Open hype machine that already had been in top gear is now set to crank into overdrive.
It will be the earliest meeting between the two since their first professional match in the second round of the 1998 Australian Open.
Williams sisters Serena and Venus had been hoping to provide fans with the first all-Williams sisters clash at a Grand Slam since the 2009 Wimbledon final in the semi-finals.
Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams and Andy Murray were the big names to win on Monday and advance to the quarter-final of the Wimbledon.
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