Qualifier Yastremska ousts Noskova to reach Australian Open semifinals

Qualifier Dayana Yastremska

View Profile 's dream run at the Australian Open will continue into the semifinals.

The 23-year-old Ukrainian scored her eighth win in Melbourne in the past three weeks by beating 19-year-old Linda Noskova

View Profile in an all-unseeded quarterfinal in Rod Laver Arena on Wednesday, 6-3, 6-4, to reach the penultimate round of a Grand Slam tournament for the first time. 

Former World No.21 Yastremska, currently ranked No.93, is the fifth qualifier in the Open Era to reach a Grand Slam semifinal, and the second to do it at the Australian Open after Christine Dorey in 1978. Three of them have done it this decade: Great Britain's Emma Raducanu

View Profile famously won the US Open title three years ago out of qualifying, and Argentina's Nadia Podoroska

View Profile reached the semifinals at Roland Garros in 2020.

"It's nice to make a history," Yastremska said afterwards. "It's something new for me and for my generation (smiling) because the last time it happened [in Melbourne] it was a long time ago. I wasn't born yet. It's nice. I'm really happy to be in my first semifinals. I was a little bit nervous, but at the same time tired.

"I think I was a little bit too emotional. ... But that's fine, because I could put my emotions away."

National pride: The fifth Ukrainian woman to ever reach a Grand Slam quarterfinal, the Odesa native will now be the second after Elina Svitolina

View Profile to play in a semifinal when she faces No.12 seed Zheng Qinwen on Thursday evening for the right to play in the women's championship. 

Behind the milestone: The lowest ranked of the eight women remaining in the draw entering the quarterfinal round, all five of Yastremska's main-draw wins have come against players ranked higher than her. She needed just 1 hour and 18 minutes to knock off World No.50 Noskova -- who had previously knocked off No.31 seed Marie Bouzkova

View Profile in the first round, World No.1 Iga Swiatek

View Profile in the third round, and Yastremska's fellow Ukrainian, No.19 seed Elina Svitolina

View Profile , who retired after just three games of their fourth-round match due to injury.

Noskova was the first of the two players to break serve in the quarterfinal -- Yastremska hit three unforced errors at 1-1 en route to getting broken -- but couldn't sustain the momentum. Yastremska broke back immediately for 2-2, won the last three games of the first set, and later, captured four of the last five games of the match.

"I will say I didn't have, like, a huge tactic for today," Yastremska confessed. "The most important thing was for me is to keep the energy up, because I had a lot of matches here already and played a lot of sets.

"You feel the tiredness, and it's normal. The main goal was just to keep the energy up and stay positive, even if I was doing sometimes stupid mistakes.

"I'm not really looking up the ranking of the players who I'm playing, because I think it's not so important, ranking. The girls, you know, at any ranking can show amazing game.

"I was doing just my thing and focusing on myself, the way I play. I think that's working."