Venus Williams continued to shine at Indian Wells. Making her seventh appearance, she reached the third semifinal without losing a set. The world No.8 offered a solid performance against an unexpectedly faulty Carla Suarez Navarro and completed a comfortable 6-3 6-2 win.

Her 764th main draw victory brought Venus to the last 4 at the Indian Wells Garden after 1998 (l. eventual champion Hingis) and 2001, when the insults and the controversy surrounding her walkover to Serena Williams via tendonitis, started a 15 year long boycott.

Venus will meet for the third time Kasatkina who will aim to seal the 10th win against a top 10 opponent. The Russian won the first clash in Auckland in 2016, then Venus avenged that defeat at Wimbledon later that year. Here, Venus clinched the first of her 134 top 10 wins as she defeated, as a qualifier, No.9 Majoli.

Good memories helped to create an even more encouraging run as she escaped a troubled second service game as she saved a couple of break points trying to use aggressive tactics like she successfully chose to do against Sevastova.

Suarez Navarro double-faulted three times in the next game. Venus, on the contrary, held more comfortably, dictated the pace and sealed the points quickly. The oldest woman in the draw, needing to reach the final in order to improve on current ranking of No.8, could return to Top 5 if she wins the title.

Coming off her 232nd Top 20 wnn, the first at Indian Wells since beating in 2001 No.11 Dementieva, who openly talked about "family affairs" in discussing the outcome of the clashes between the Williams sisters, Venus highlighted Suarez Navarro's frailties from the baseline.

She constantly attacked the Spaniard's usually trustful one-handed backhand and Suarez Navarro showed an increased uneasiness in covering the court. Venus, whose only loss to a player ranked outside Top 20 at Indian Wells came against No.89 Nara in 2016, continued her faultless run and took the first set 6-3.

Her solid game helped her to take the initiative from the baseline and put a constant pressure on the Spaniard forced to hurry up in her frustrated desire to go for her shots and play her own game. In the second set, the No.27 suddenly broke on the verge of a seven points winning streak but soon she restarted to repeat the same old error-prone patterns.

Suarez Navarro, the last remaining of three Spanish players in draw after 2r exits for Muguruza (l. Vickery) and Arruabarrena (l.Wozniacki), had three chances to break back at 3-2 down. She went 0-40 up but she wasted those opportunities after a worrying series of mistakes that made her second quarter-final in Indian Wells even harder.

Contesting the tournament on her highest rank since July 3, 2017, certain to return to Top 25 having reached the quarter-finals, Suarez Navarro ran out of gas after beating No.4 Svitolina in the third round, her first Top 5 wins since 2016 Birmingham (d.

No.4 Kerber in QF). Having not recorded two Top 10 wins at the same tournament since her runner-up finish at 2015 Rome (d. No.6 Bouchard, No.4 Kvitova and No.2 Halep, l. No.3 Sharapova), Suarez Navarro's movements visibly worsened in the second set.

She even thought she had a net drop shot on Venus but she hit the net. Venus consequently broke to 5-2 and easily served out the match.