Venus, Agassi march on
Venus Williams unleashed her big-serving game to blast into the Australian Open semi-finals as men's favourite Andre Agassi romped into the last four here Tuesday.
Williams, seeded two, just missed breaking her own world record for the fastest serve ever recorded as she blew away seventh-seeded Slovakian Daniela Hantuchova 6-4, 6-3 in 1hr 15min.
Second seed Agassi was an equally emphatic winner in his quarterfinal with 12th seed Sebastien Grosjean, sweeping aside the Frenchman in two hours to win 6-3, 6-2, 6-2.
The 32-year-old American will now play South Africa's Wayne Ferreira in the semifinals on Thursday. Unseeded Ferreira defeated fourth seed Juan Carlos Ferrero of Spain 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (7/5), 6-1 in the late match Tuesday.
Ferreira's victory in 2hr and 11 minutes equalled his best performance in a Grand Slam, a semi-final appearance at the Australian Open in 1992.
Earlier, Williams had breated a buzz at Melbourne Park with her blistering serves.
After mothballing the biggest shots in her repetoire in recent seasons, Williams decided to unload with the heavy artillery against Hantuchova - and the results were devastating.
One Williams' ace was sent rocketing towards Hantuchova at 201kp/h, just outside the 205kp/h exocet that she blasted in Zurich in 1998, which remains the fastest serve ever recorded on the WTA Tour.
The bad news for Williams' semifinal opponent - fifth seed Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium - is that Venus thinks she can serve faster.
Williams said she was unaware she had nearly broken her record against Hantuchova with her 201 kp/h blockbuster.
"I didn't even know I served it," Williams said. "I guess the times I serve the hardest are when I'm not trying. I haven't even tried to break my record.
"Back when I was serving really big, I had the 205, I was always trying to serve really hard. So this tournament I did decide that I'm going to start trying to do that again.
"Now I'm trying to see if I can serve it even bigger than the record."
Hantuchova had no answer to Williams' service game, the American thumping down six aces on her way to victory.
Afterwards Hantuchova said Williams serve was practically unplayable.
"That serve was incredible," Hantuchova said. "I mean, you feel like you have your chances, and then somebody serves like 200k an hour. There's not much you can do about it.
"I had my chances on her serve, but any time I felt like I was going to break her or something, she just served unbelievable," said Hantuchova.
Williams now plays Henin-Hardenne in the last four.
Henin-Hardenne recovered from her gruelling fourth round battle against Lindsay Davenport on Sunday, when she collapsed on court with cramp, to beat Virginia Ruano Pascual 6-2, 6-2.
In the men's quarterfinals, Agassi became the first man to reach the last four with a whirlwind demolition of Grosjean that the American said was harder than it looked.
"Scorelines I believe can always be misleading and today was a question of it being a lot tougher than the score. It was toe to toe," said Agassi.
Agassi's victory stretched his unbeaten run at the Australian Open to 19 matches - he was a back-to-back winner here in 2000 and 2001, and withdrew from last year's tournament because of injury.
With top seed and world number one Lleyton Hewitt dumped out on Monday, Agassi is now favourite to triumph on Sunday. Agassi said he was only concentrating on the semi-final when asked about his chances.
"I have one person on my mind now and it's either Wayne or Juan Carlos, it's that simple for me," he said. Grosjean said Agassi was well-placed to claim his fourth Australian Open.
"Yes, I think Agassi can win in each tournament he plays," he said. He's ready. He's hitting the ball very hard and doesn't spend long on the court.
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