Six-time champion Serena Williams outplayed Britain’s Johanna Konta to reach the 2017 Australian open semi-finals.

The American won 6-2 6-3 and is now two wins from claiming an open-era record of 23rd major title.

Konta, seeded ninth, went into the quarter-final on a nine-match and 18-set winning streak.

Serena is seeking her seventh Melbourne park title, which would assure her of a return to world number one in place of ousted champion Angelique Kerber.

 She will next play unseeded Croat, Mirjana Lucic-Baroni, who beat fifth seed Karolina Pliskova of Czech republic 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

Lucic-Baroni won the Australian open doubles title in 1998.

The world number 79 upset Pliskova to reach the semi-finals in Melbourne, eighteen years after she reached the same stage at Wimbledon.

Serena's sister, Venus, will take on fellow American, coco Vandeweghe in the other semi-final.

Venus reached the Australian open semi-finals for the first time in 14 years with a straight-set win over Russia’s Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova.

The 36-year-old American has never won the title, her best effort is a runner-up finish to Sister Serena in 2003.