Federer in SemiFinals

Roger Federer and Serena Williams showed championship form to battle back from a set down and storm into their semifinals at the Australian Open on Wednesday.Li Na also made the last four with an upset victory over Venus Williams, giving China two players in a Grand Slam semi for the first time. Her reward is a clash with top seed Serena.But the tournament ended for ailing third seed Novak Djokovic who was knocked out in a thrilling late night five-setter by 10th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the man he beat in the 2008 final.The Frenchman will now meet Federer, who was given a scare by sixth seed Nikolay Davydenko when the Russian ace led 6-2, 3-1 before the Swiss star clicked into gear.

Titanic struggle

He won 13 straight games to take the next two sets before a titantic struggle in the fourth with the 15-time Grand Slam champion eventually coming home 2-6, 6-3, 6-0, 7-5 to end Davydenko’s 13-match winning streak.

It puts Federer into his 23rd consecutive Grand Slam semifinal, having never missed out since his third round defeat to Brazilian Gustavo Kuerten at Roland Garros in 2004.

“I’ve played him many times and I know he goes through phases for half an hour, an hour,” Federer said of Davydenko.

“You’ve just got to stick with him and if you don’t he’s going to crush you.

Tsonga prevailed 7-6(8), 6-7(5), 1-6, 6-3, 6-1 in a near four-hour marathon against Djokovic, who was struggling with illness and at one point took a medical timeout for an upset stomach.

Like Federer, Serena was also on the ropes before staging a comeback to stay on track for her fifth Australian title.

She was down 4-6, 0-4 to seventh seed Victoria Azarenka before fighting back and winning a tense tie-breaker to level the match.

Azarenka was rattled and Serena rammed home her advantage to win 4-6, 7-6(4), 6-2 and set up a clash with Li, who came from behind to shock Venus 2-6, 7-6(4), 7-5.

Scrappy encounter

Venus should have made it a sister act in the semifinals, but she threw it away against Li in a scrappy match where they made a incredible combined 110 unforced errors.

She was a set and 4-2 up in the second when Li made her move, playing with greater freedom as Venus tightened up, with her forehand going to pieces.

Paes out of men’s doubles

Meanwhile, India’s Leander Paes had a bitter-sweet experience with the Indian ace sailing into the semifinals of mixed doubles but crashing out of men’s doubles event here today.

The Australian Open title continued to elude the men’s doubles specialist as he and his Czech partner Lukas Dlouhy, seeded third, went down 3-6 4-6 to unseeded Croat-Serb combination of Ivo Karlovic and Dusan Vemic.

The Indian derived some solace later in the day when he partnered Zimbabwean Cara Black to clear their semifinal passage in the mixed doubles event.

The top seeded pair, which defeated eighth seed Elena Vesnina of Russia and Israel’s Andy Ram 6-4 6-3, will next take on seventh seed pair of American Lisa Raymond and Wesley Moodie of South Africa.