Aryna Sabalenka and Elena Rybakina will clash in what promises to be a bruising Australian Open final on Saturday after both won in straight sets in the last four.
Big-serving Wimbledon champion Rybakina defeated two-time Melbourne winner Victoria Azarenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 at a blustery and chilly Rod Laver Arena in Melbourne on Thursday.
Powerful Belarusian Sabalenka then marched into the championship match with a 7-6 (7/1), 6-2 win over unseeded Magda Linette.
The 24-year-old Sabalenka will be contesting her first Grand Slam final.
The fifth seed has battled nerves in big matches previously and worked with a sports psychologist, but said after dismissing the Pole that both were a thing of the past.
Whatever she is doing, it is working: Sabalenka has been in the form of her life since arriving in Australia.
She won the Adelaide International warm-up tournament and has now extended her unbeaten streak to 10 matches, not losing a single set in any of them.
And yet it was 30-year-old Linette, contesting her first major semifinal, who was out of the gate fastest, breaking to love in the opening game and holding for an early lead.
Sabalenka was being made to work hard and showed all her new-found patience to get back on terms with a break of her own, to love, for 2-2 and the set went to a tiebreak.
Sabalenka timed her moment perfectly to up the aggression, and the decibel level, racing to 4-0 with a scream.
An ace that barely clipped the line stretched it to 5-0 and she closed out comfortably after 51 minutes, having smacked 20 winners to just seven from Linette.
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