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MELBOURNE. – Stanislas Wawrinka engaged in a war of words with Jo-Wilfried Tsonga before winning the only argument that mattered yesterday, storming into the Australian Open tennis semi-finals with a 7-6(2), 6-4, 6-3 win over the Frenchman.Wawrinka bickered heatedly with the 12th seed during a change of ends after the first set before putting his aggression to better use, wrapping up the one-sided match in two hours and 15 minutes on a sun-bathed Rod Laver Arena.

Fourth seed Wawrinka will battle compatriot Roger Federer for a place in the final. Wawrinka, the 2014 champion, put in his most complete performance of the tournament against Tsonga, sending 41 sweetly struck winners whistling past the out-of-sorts Frenchman, a former finalist but a shadow of his usual energetic self.

Tsonga put up some stout resistance early in the match but that crumbled in the first set tie-break when he elected not to play at a blazing backhand pass.

It landed flush in the corner, giving Wawrinka four set points and Tsonga folded on the first of them. The pair retired to their chairs between sets and suddenly began sniping at each other.

“What did you say? You’re the one looking at me and talking to me. What are you looking for?” Wawrinka barked at Tsonga in French. “Come on, let it go. Did I look at you once?”

Tsonga’s best response came in the second set when he broke Wawrinka in the seventh game after the Swiss botched a simple volley and hammered another unforced error.

But after Tsonga handed serve straight back, broken to love, tension threatened to boil over again as Wawrinka came forward to smash a winner directly at the Frenchman.

The Swiss waved an apology but Tsonga walked away.

Wawrinka stormed on relentlessly, breaking Tsonga twice more with a display of pure power hitting to take the second set. Tsonga went a break down quickly in the third but had one last chance to rally when Wawrinka gave up a break point at 4-2.

The Swiss slammed the door shut, however, nervelessly crushing a forehand deep into the corner and then rushing forward to put away the volley. Within minutes he had three match points, and his third semifinal at Melbourne Park sewn up when Tsonga pushed a defensive lob over the baseline.

While a semi-final against Federer would hold no fear for Wawrinka, he said he was fully aware his compatriot would be the crowd favourite as he bids for an 18th Grand Slam title.

“It’s going to be tough to have some fans, but hopefully a few will cheer for me,” he said in a court-side interview.

Four-time champion Federer took apart Mischa Zverev 6-1, 7-5, 6-2 with a clinical display of all-court tennis to reach his 13th Australian Open semi-final in 92 minutes yesterday.

Chasing an 18th grand slam title, and first since 2012, the 35-year-old Federer neutered his left-handed German opponent’s serve-volley game to set up a last-four meeting with fellow Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka.

Looking in form as imperious as in his heyday of a decade ago despite missing the back end of last season after knee surgery, Federer is now one match away from a potential final against his old rival Rafael Nadal.

In the women’s draw, Venus Williams continued her astonishing late-career revival by felling Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 6-4, 7-6(3) yesterday to reach her first Australian Open semi-final in 14 years.

The quarter-final will hardly be remembered as a classic, with both Williams and the 24th-ranked Russian surrendering serve with alarming regularity despite perfect conditions for tennis at Rod Laver Arena.

In the end it was 36-year-old Williams’s experience that proved decisive when the pressure rose, and Pavlyuchenkova crumbled with a double-fault on match point to boost the American’s hopes of a maiden title at Melbourne Park.

“Oh my gosh I’m so excited,” said Williams after closing out the one hour and 48-minute match. “I want to go further. I’m not happy just with this.

“I’m just so excited that I have another opportunity to play again.”

A semi-finalist at Wimbledon last year, Williams last reached the last four in Melbourne in 2003 when she made a run to the final and was beaten by younger sister Serena in three sets. – AFP.