WOMEN'S ROUNDUP

updated 10:07 p.m. ET Jan. 22, 2008

MELBOURNE, Australia - Serena Williams stumbled one round short of a rematch, so Maria Sharapova had to unload a year’s worth of retribution on somebody else.

Justine Henin caught the brunt of it.

Sharapova advanced to the Australian Open semifinals for the fourth straight year with a convincing 6-4, 6-0 win over top-ranked Henin, snapping the Belgian star’s 32-match winning streak.

“Even though I beat Justine, it’s definitely not over,” the 20-year-old Russian star said. “I still have a lot of business to take care of.”

Defending champion Williams had slumped 6-3, 6-4 earlier in the afternoon to third-ranked Jelena Jankovic, who reached the semifinals at Melbourne Park for the first time and only the third time in a major.

Ninth-seeded Daniela Hantuchova made the semifinals at a major for the first time when she beat Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland 6-2, 6-2 on Wednesday. The 24-year-old Slovakian player had not been to the second week of a Grand Slam tournament since her quarterfinal exits at three consecutive majors, ending with a loss to Venus Williams in the Australian Open in 2003.

“It feels great. I kept fighting for every point, even in matches I wasn’t playing very well,” she said. “I kept believing I could do it, and here I am.”

She could get a semifinal shot at Venus Williams, who was playing No. 4-ranked Ana Ivanovic later Wednesday in her first quarterfinal at Melbourne Park since losing the final to her sister, Serena, in ’03.

Serena Williams was unseeded and ranked No. 81 when she made her stunning run to a third Australian and eighth Grand Slam title here 12 months ago, punctuating that with an emphatic 6-1, 6-2 win over Sharapova in one of the most lopsided Grand Slam finals.

It was a big setback for Sharapova, who struggled with a shoulder problem for most of the season and her ranking slipped outside the top 5.

But the winner of two Grand Slam events started returning to her best at the WTA championships in November before losing in three sets to Henin in three hours, 24 minutes — among the dozen longest women’s tour matches in the Open era.

She turned the tables in only 1:38 on Tuesday, inflicting the first 6-0 set on Henin since 2002.

“I really felt like I was in a bubble,” No. 5 Sharapova said. “I think it was one of the most consistent matches where I did all the things I wanted to do, and I did them correctly from the beginning to the end ... and just played the way I can play.”

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