Daria Kasatkina (20) was two points from exiting the tournament at the hands of Venus Williams (8) in their semi final but found her way to victory.
The bigger surprise was the crushing win by Naomi Osaka over Simona Halep (1).
Kasatkina raced to a 3-1 lead in the opening set before Williams adjusted her game, coming forward at every opportunity to blunt the effectiveness of the Russian shot making.
Winning four successive games, Williams led 5-3, but Kasatkina broke back for 4-5.
Venus won the set 6-4 thanks to a double fault and an errant forehand from Daria.
Nothing much separated the pair in set two, but it was the Russian who claimed two breaks of serve to level things 4-6 6-4. Williams was starting to leak more unforced errors, assisting in Kasatkina’s revival.
After trading service breaks at the start of set three, the players held serve through to 4-5, with Kasatkina to serve.
Until then it was Daria holding more easily. However, in the tenth game she was down 0-30 and Venus was close to victory.
Kasatkina simply won twelve of the last fourteen points, mostly due to Williams errors, and the match was hers 4-6 6-4 7-5.
That makes four straight wins over current top twenty players, each of whom are Grand Slam tournament champions.
Naomi Osaka interrupted the run of Simona Halep, whose only loss for 2018 had been the Aus Open final in which she was so close to triumphing.
After breaking Halep’s opening serve, Osaka was immediately given the same treatment and 3-3 was reached in set one.
From that point Osaka overpowered Halep, winning nine successive games. The Japanese number one had soaring confidence and Halep was unusually scattering errors all over the court due to the pressure being exerted.
6-3 6-0 and a second final for Osaka, this no doubt the bigger one of her career.
Osaka is now number 26 in the world, a new career high, up from her previous high of 40. It will be 22 should she win the final.
Kasatkina is now at a career high of 11, and will move into the top ten at 9 if she wins the title.
Her career high before this tournament was 19.
The remaining men’s quarter finals:
Milos Raonic (32) defeated Sam Querrey (18) 7-5 2-6 6-3
Juan Martin del Potro (6) defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber (31) 3-6 6-3 6-4
Men’s semis on Day Eleven will be:
Roger Federer (1) v Borna Coric
Milos Raonic (32) v Juan Martin del Potro (6)
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