Melbourne, January 22:

Maria Sharapova was ready to play three or for hours but didn’t need to. Serena Williams did and ended up with two losses.

Fifth-ranked Sharapova ended No 1 Justine Henin’s 32-match winning streak 6-4, 6-0 on Tuesday to advance to the Australian Open semi-finals for the fourth straight year. Williams, who beat Sharapova in last year’s final, was ousted 6-3, 6-4 by Jelena Jankovic, then teamed with sister Venus to lose their women’s doubles match — spending a total of 3 1/2 hours on court.

On the men’s side, second-ranked Rafael had a 7-5, 6-3, 6-1 win over No 24 Jarkko Nieminen of Finland, making the semi-finals for the first time in four trips to the Australian Open. The only player to beat Roger Federer in the last 10 Grand Slam tournaments, Nadal will face unseeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the biggest surprise of the tournament so far, who ousted No 14 Mikhail Youzhny 7-5, 6-0, 7-6 (6). Tsonga, ranked 38th, is playing in only his fifth Grand Slam tournament — partly due to a rash of injuries — and had never gone past the fourth before.

Sharapova, going for winners and keeping Henin on the run with deep, rushed to a 3-0 lead in the first set. Henin kicked a ball after a fault in a rare show of anger. She broke Sharapova as she served for the first set at 5-3, only to be broken on a pair of backhand winners in the next game by the Russian.

With little going right for Henin, who won the French Open and US Open titles after missing the Australian Open last year, Sharapova rushed through the second set, ripping 15 winners to only five unforced errors. It was the first time that Henin had lost a set 6-0 since she was beaten in the first round at the 2002 French Open 4-6, 6-1, 6-0 by Aniko Kapros, a qualifier from Hungary.

Jankovic was seeded third and Williams seventh, so on paper, but her victory wasn’t an upset. But as well as Jankovic has been in rising through the rankings, she has never reached the final of a Grand Slam, while Williams seemed to be close to the form that she once used to dominate tennis.

“My shots just weren’t right,” Williams said. “I didn’t move the way I traditionally want to move, and I wasn’t feeling 100 per cent. But as an athlete, you know not every day you’re going to feel 100 per cent, and some days you have to win feeling 30 per cent. I’m not going to sit here and make excuses,” she added, refusing to specify what was wrong with her physically.

Williams beat Jankovic in the fourth round here last year, and there was little cause to think this would be any different, especially with the Serbian woman still not completely recovered from a thigh injury suffered shortly before the tournament began.