Aus Open 2017: Venus Williams fights back to beat CoCo Vandeweghe, advances into second Australian Open final

Melbourne: Venus Williams continued her dream run in Australian Open 2017 with a comprehensive 6-7, 6-2, 6-3 win over CoCo Vandeweghe. After losing the first set, the 36-year-old fought back hard to stun her unseeded 25-year-old opponent.

Despite saving three match points in her final service game, Vandeweghe couldn't handle the pressure, as she committed three double faults.

In the first set, which lasted for an hour, Vandeweghe was the better of the two players as he won it in the tie breaker (7-3). During the first sixty minutes, Williams looked slightly off-colour.

But Venus, who was playing in her 17th Australian Open, bounced back in the second set and clinched it 6-2 in 38 minutes. Vandeweghe made 16 unforced errors in the second set, which proved to be too costly for her.

Williams, who last appeared in a Grand Slam final in 2009 (Wimbledon), will now take on the winner of another women's semi-final between her sister Serena Williams and miraculous former prodigy Mirjana Lucic Baroni.

Williams earlier defeated the 24th-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, 6-4, 7-6 (3), in a big-hitting quarterfinal in the sunshine in Rod Laver Arena.

Williams became the oldest woman to reach the Australian Open semifinals in singles in the Open era, which began in 1968. She is the oldest woman to reach this stage of a Grand Slam tournament in singles since Martina Navratilova reached the final at Wimbledon in 1994 at 37.