There were only four singles matches on Day 9 and three of them were “upsets.” The night began with defending champion Serena Williams and the world’s fourth ranked player, Jelena Jankovic, squaring off. Neither player looked fully healthy as they both had to call for the trainer in the match (at the same time), but it was Jankovic who prevailed. She won the match 6-3, 6-4 and in doing so she has reached the Australian Open semifinals for the first time in her career. The real difference in the match was the amount of unforced errors that Serena had. Jankovic had 22 winners and 17 unforced errors, where as Serena had 34 winners and 36 unforced errors.

The next match on was the Rafael Nadal/Jarkko Nieminen clash. This was the only match that went how it was supposed to go. The second-seeded Nadal defeated Nieminen 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 to reach his first career Australian Open semifinal. Nadal has looked very good on the new surface, in fact he has yet to drop a set in the tournament. Nadal is 5-0 lifetime in Grand Slam semifinals, and he is trying to become the fist man since Andre Agassi in 2000 to win the Australian Open after winning the French Open the year before.

Both Jankovic and Nadal then had to wait to see who their semifinal opponents would be…

The first match on at night featured the world’s number-one ranked woman, Justine Henin, taking on a former world #1 and Grand Slam champion, Maria Sharapova. Many people heading into the match were picking Henin, as she has been clearly the dominant woman on the WTA Tour for the last year and was riding a 32-match win streak. It was Sharapova though who came out firing. She won the first set 6-4, breaking Henin in her first service game. Henin then broke back at 5-2 and held for 5-4, but Sharapova wouldn’t let her complete the comeback. The second set was all Sharapova as she broke Henin four times and had only five unforced errors in the set. She won the match 6-4, 6-0 and will face Jankovic in the semifinals.

The last match on court was between the amazing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and the consistent Mikhail Youzhny. Well, Tsonga continued his impressive run with a 7-5, 6-0, 7-6(6) victory over Youzhny. Not only is this Tsonga’s first career Grand Slam semifinal, but he became the first unseeded French semifinalist at the Australian Open since Nicolas Escude in 1998. Tsonga won 89% of his points on his first serve and didn’t face a break point the entire match. Youzhny served well, getting in 73% of his first serves, but he had more unforced errors than winners. Congrats to Tsonga for reaching the semis!!