Serena and Venus set up an all-Williams semifinal in the Rogers Cup with hard-fought victories on Friday, both coming from a set down.
The sisters advanced to their 25th career meeting on Friday. Serena beat Caroline Wozniacki 4-6, 7-5, 7-5, and Venus topped Carla Suarez Navarro 4-6, 6-2, 6-3.
The other semifinal will pit third-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska against Ekaterina Makarova.
Makarova beat Coco Vandeweghe 6-1, 4-6, 6-1 while Radwanska breezed past Victoria Azarenka 6-2, 6-2.
The 32-year-old Serena has won the past five matches against 34-year-old Venus to take a 14-10 edge.
“I definitely don’t like playing her,” Serena said. “I’ve lost to her more than anyone on the tour, so it’s definitely not a fun match.
“She’s tough. She has a great serve. She runs every ball down. She has a great backhand. She hits winners off the forehand. She does everything well so it’s not an ideal matchup for anyone, to be honest.”
Serena, the defending champion and world’s top-ranked player, extended her Rogers Cup winning streak to 14 matches after victories at the 2011 and 2013 events in Toronto. She skipped the 2012 tournament.
Wozniacki, coming off a win at Istanbul, had won eight straight matches.
The match lasted 2 hours, 41 minutes, with Wozniacki taking control in the first set and building a 2-0 lead in the second before Serena started hitting the lines.
“I was making a lot of unforced errors in general,” Serena said. “But I just thought, ‘Just keep fighting. Hopefully I can just hold on and hold on, try to break, keep going for each shot.’”
The third set featured five service breaks, the last giving Serena the win on her third match point.
Wozniacki was happy with her tournament despite the loss.
“It was really small things that did it out there today,” she said. “She came up with quite a few big serves when she needed to. It could have gone both ways. I had a break in the second set. Didn’t manage to hold on. But I gave it everything I had. It just wasn’t quite enough.”
Venus last beat Serena in 2009 in Dubai.
“Anyone who has got any wins against her, they’ve pretty much played the match of their life,” Venus said. “I’d like to imagine that I won’t have to play the match of my life. That’s tough to do. But I know I need to play well.”
They first met in the second round of the 1999 Australian Open, with Venus winning in two sets.
“I totally remember,” Venus said. “We had a tough match back then. That’s the trend that started and it hasn’t changed. I suspect this will be another tough match.”
