Melbourne: As well as she played at the start of her Australian Open quarterfinal Serena Williams suddenly was struggling early in the second set. After one mistake against No. 2 seed Simona Halep – who won the last time they played each other – Serena Williams pointed at her racket strings and made a sour face. It was as if to make clear it wasn’t truly her own fault. After another mistake, Williams looked up at her guest box with palms up and asked, “What is happening?”
That dismay did not last long. Williams claimed the five games in a row in the second set and beat Halep 6-3, 6-3 here Tuesday to enter the semis. Seeking a record-tying 24th Grand Slam title, Williams set up a showdown against No. 3 Naomi Osaka, who will carry a 19-match winning streak into Thursday’s semifinals.
“She’s Serena,” Osaka said. “I feel really intimidated when I see her on the other side of the court.”
This will be their fourth career matchup – all on hard courts. Osaka leads 2-1, the most memorable encounter, of course, coming in the final of the 2018 US Open.
That loss to Osaka in Flushing Meadows is part of an 0-4 record for Williams in Grand Slam finals since her last championship. Another one of those defeats came against Halep at Wimbledon in 2019.
Williams got into an argument with the chair umpire after her coach was caught trying to relay a signal. It is not allowed in Grand Slam play and wound up being docked a game.
In the men’s quarterfinals in Melbourne, 114th-ranked qualifier Aslan Karatsev of Russia became the first man in the professional era to get to the semifinals in his first Grand Slam appearance, defeating No. 18 seed Grigor Dimitrov 2-6, 6-4, 6-1, 6-2.
Karatsev next faces the winner of Tuesday’s quarterfinal between eight-time Australian Open champion Novak Djokovic and No. 5 Alexander Zverev.