MELBOURNE, Australia – Defending champion Serena Williams has advanced to her fifth Australian Open final and will put her 100 percent record here on the line against Justine Henin, who is only two tournaments into her comeback from retirement.
Both advanced over Chinese players on Thursday to set up a championship match involving two former Australian champions.
Top-ranked Williams, who won the title here every odd-numbered year since beating her sister Venus in the 2003 final, wasted four match points before finishing off a 7-6 (4), 7-6 (1) semifinal win with an ace against Li Na.
The 11-time Grand Slam singles champion has never lost a final at Melbourne Park, and her attitude might have had something to do with that.
“I don’t come into a tournament trying to defend a title. I come into a tournament trying to win a title,” she said. “That’s how I look at it.”
Li had rallied from a set and a break down against Venus in the quarterfinals to prevent a projected sisters semifinal.
Henin overwhelmed 2008 Wimbledon semifinalist Zheng Jie 6-1, 6-0 in 51 minutes, the shortest match of this tournament and the most lopsided semifinal at the Australian Open since Chris Evert beat Andrea Jaeger by the same score in 1982.
It was her easiest match in a run that has included wins over Olympic gold medalist and fifth-seeded Elena Dementieva in the second round, 16th-ranked Yanina Wickmayer in the fourth and No. 19 Nadia Petrova in the quarterfinals.
Andy Murray defeated Marin Cilic to reach the final and is again only a win away from ending a long British drought at the Grand Slam tournaments.
Murray started slowly but picked up momentum Thursday night in a 3-6, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2 win over the 21-year-old Croatian.
Murray is the first British man to reach the final in Australia since John Lloyd in 1977 and the first to reach two Grand Slam finals in the Open era.
Cilic had an upset win over Murray in the fourth round of the 2009 US Open, where the Scot had lost the final the previous year to Roger Federer. (AP)