Venus and Serena Williams defended their Australian Open doubles title by beating Cara Black and Liezel Huber 6-4 6-3 in the final.

The Williams sisters have now won the Australian Open doubles competition four times, and collected their eleventh Grand Slam doubles title, which makes them the third most successful women’s doubles partnership in the Open era.

The top-seeded team of Black and Huber headed to the Australian Open with victories in Sydney and Auckland in the beginning of the season, but the second-seeded Williamses have now beaten the top-ranked pair in all three of their meetings. Serena and Venus actually have a perfect record in Grand Slam finals, and are 16-1 in finals overall.

The sisters now regret they didn’t focus on doubles earlier in their careers. "We were talking today about how we wished we had have played more when we were younger," said Serena, who is awaiting her Australian Open singles final against Justine Henin. (source: BBC, photo: WILLIAM WEST/AFP/Getty Images)

Top seed Serena Williams and returning wildcard Justine Henin eliminated their Chinese semifinal opponents to book their first meeting in a Grand Slam final.

World No.1 Serena Williams advanced to her fifth Australian Open final after a tense victory over seed No.16 Li Na. The Chinese showed great resistance to take the defending champion to two tiebreaks, but crumbled in both to lose 7-6(4) 7-6(1).

Unseeded former world No.1 Justine Henin blew Zheng Jie off court in just 51 minutes with a 6-1 6-0 victory in the semifinals. The 35th-ranked Zheng had very good first serve percentage of 81, and the score was that bad. Imagine what would have happened if her serve was worse.

Williams and Henin faced each other for the first time nine years ago. Only four of their encounters were in a WTA final in which they are tied at 2-2, and they are about to have their first one in a major. Williams leads their head-to-head record 7-6. (photos via Australian Open)

World No.17 Li Na went bungee jumping for the first time during this month’s ASB Classic in New Zealand and I thought it would be nice to share the video clip, as the Chinese is a player to watch at the moment.

I’m wishing Li Na to jump into the Australian Open final, Serena’s years are odd ones anyway. The two are facing each other in a few hours. Serena has a 3-1 record against Li. They faced each other at the Australian Open once, and although it was four years ago we can mention that Serena won, but in three sets.

The second pair of quarterfinals saw defending champion Serena Williams surviving a tough contest against Victoria Azarenka, while Serena's sister Venus got upset by Li Na, the second player from China in this year's Australian Open semifinals.

The four-time Australian Open champion Serena Williams was on the brink of defeat after losing the first set and trailing 4-0 in the second. Serena's trademark comeback abilities are always by her side, especially at Grand Slams, and this time the American top seed resorted to them again to eventually beat Victoria Azarenka 4-6 7-6(4) 6-2.  The 11-time Grand Slam champion has won three Grand Slam titles saving match points on the way, two of the times at the Australian Open.

In the earlier quarterfinal, Venus Williams lost to Li Na 2-6 7-6(4) 7-5, and the Chinese advanced to her first Grand Slam semifinal, joining compatriot Zheng Jie in the elite four. Venus was two points away from winning the match in the second set, but threw away a match-winning lead. Li had saved two match points in her third-round victory over Agnes Szavay and has now progressed further than ever in a major event.

The other semifinal will feature Justine Henin and Zheng Jie. What was once science fiction has become reality, as now we have a possibility of an all-Chinese final. (photos via Australian Open)

Part-time fashion designer Venus Williams is so unbelievably productive that she can win tennis matches while designing her EleVen outfits, right there, on the court. I’m impressed!

From Eurosport:

…the seven-times Grand Slam winner later clarified on her Twitter page that she was in fact wearing a flesh-coloured top and shorts that she designed herself during her fourth-round clash with Francesca Schiavone.

I wonder what Venus will design during her forthcoming quarterfinal against Li Na.

Thank you, Diane, for sharing this on your blog. (photo via Australian Open)