Australian Open: American teen upends Venus Williams, faces Serena

MELBOURNE, Australia – American teenager Madison Keys overcame a left thigh injury to beat Venus Williams 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 at the Australian Open on Tuesday, ensuring there would be no Williams sisters semifinal.

“It’s amazing, you just have to embrace the moment,” said Keys, who is now coached by former three-time major winner Lindsay Davenport. “And I get to enjoy another moment next round.”

The 19-year-old Keys will play top-seeded Serena Williams, who beat last year’s runnerup Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-2, in Thursday’s semifinal. The other semifinal is No. 2 Maria Sharapova against No. 10-seeded Ekaterina Makarova.

Keys received treatment on her leg after dropping serve in the second set to give Venus Williams a 4-1 lead. After the medical timeout, she came back to break Williams’ serve twice to level the set at 4-all, but Williams then broke her next service game and served out the set, sending it to a decider.

Keys was also behind 3-1 in the final set before breaking Williams’ serve three times in a row to close out the match.

Keys said the injury was the same one that forced her to retire from her third-round match last year at Wimbledon.

“It was definitely one of those things where it wasn’t nearly as bad as Wimbledon, but it was that nightmare of ‘I don’t want this to happen again,”’ she said. “Luckily the pain meds kicked in.”

Serena Williams moved one step closer to her 19th Grand Slam title by displaying her immense power, reeling off heavy returns that included 58 winners compared to 38 from Cibulkova.

All five previous times Williams has advanced to the semifinals she has won the title at Melbourne Park.

Murray, Wawrinka reach semis

Andy Murray ensured there would be no five-set comeback for local hope Nick Kyrgiost, beating the 19-year-old Australian 6-3 7-6 (5), 6-3.

Kyrgios came back from two sets down and saved a match point in the fourth round Sunday before beating Italian Andreas Seppi, the player who had eliminated Roger Federer.

But the excitable Kyrgios was undone by the sixth-seeded Murray’s steady all-court game and his own string of unforced errors, silencing the parochial crowd.

Murray didn’t face his first break point until the seventh game of the final set.

Defending champion Stan Wawrinka advanced with a 6-3, 6-4, 7-6 (6) win over U.S. Open runner-up Kei Nishikori.

In the tiebreaker, Wawrinka raced to a 4-0 and 6-1 lead before Nishikori saved five match points to level the score at 6-all.