Serena Williams broke her run of slow starts at the Australian Open on Wednesday to hammer Dominika Cibulkova 6-2 6-2 and set up an all-American semi-final against teenager Madison Keys.
An injury-hampered Keys dug deep to beat Williams' older sister Venus in three sets earlier in the day, but Serena was in no mood for a contest as she broke the Slovakian 11th seed twice in each set and gave her nothing on serve.
Williams closed out the match when last year's finalist Cibulkova clubbed a return past the baseline and the American grinned broadly as she smiled and waved at the Rod Laver Arena crowd on a sunny, breezy day.
Top seed Williams will head into the semi-final fresh after her one-hour five-minute rout as she bids to win her first title at Melbourne Park since 2010.
Comments
Comments have to be in English, and in full sentences. They cannot be abusive or personal. Please abide by our community guidelines for posting your comments.
We have migrated to a new commenting platform. If you are already a registered user of TheHindu Businessline and logged in, you may continue to engage with our articles. If you do not have an account please register and login to post comments. Users can access their older comments by logging into their accounts on Vuukle.