The oldest woman in the top 200 has won through to her first Wimbledon semi-final in seven years, and in so doing is the oldest to make the last four at a Grand Slam in 22 years.

Williams, who turned 36 ten days before The Championships began, outlasted Yaroslava Shvedova in a 64-minute first set and then brokered no argument in the second to triumph 7-6(5), 6-2.

Shvedova may be the world No.96 but this was her third Grand Slam quarter-final, and she beat a string of marquee names to make it this far. But the Kazakh’s entire career has lacked consistency, and that was precisely the quality she could not find on No.1 Court in this match.

Williams – already a five-time title winner here, of course – will face this year’s Australian Open champion Angelique Kerber for a place in Saturday’s final.

“It doesn’t feel foreign at all,” said Venus, of being back in the semi-final after five years of struggling with Sjogren’s Syndrome, a disorder which causes extreme fatigue and joint pain.

Asked how she is playing now compared to before her diagnosis, she laughed: “I don’t remember – it’s ages ago. I was most likely kicking butt. It’s been a journey, but it’s made me stronger. The hardest part is not being in control because as an athlete you’re used to being able to work for anything.

"But I wouldn’t wish it any other way. It’s easy to be afraid. I never thought what I might have been able to achieve if I hadn’t been ill. It could have been different, but it wasn’t. Retiring would have been the easy way out. I don’t have time for easy. Tennis is just hard.”

There can’t be too many 28-year-olds on the tour who Venus has never faced before, but such was the case somehow with Shvedova. Among those defeated by the latter en route to this match were the No.17 seed Elina Svitolina, the 2013 Wimbledon finalist Sabine Lisicki, and last year’s Roland Garros runner-up (and 2014 Wimbledon semi-finalist to boot) Lucie Safarova.

The unexpected purple patch sprang up after seven straight defeats, either in qualifying or the first round in successive tournaments, including all three of the grass court warm-ups (although she did win the doubles at ’s-Hertogenbosch with Oksana Kalashnikova).

But she is probably best-known in SW19 for her unique ‘golden set’ against Sara Errani  four years ago, when her ‘bagel’ over the Italian comprised 24 straight winning points.

But in this quarter-final, her performance matched her career, with phases of notable play sandwiched between inexplicable errors. The two of them toughed out a gritty first set, with Shvedova pushing hard. Venus faced break points in all three of her opening service games, but when Shvedova made it count for 3-2, she handed back the advantage right away with some of the 33 errors she amassed in the match. Those opening six games took 31 minutes.