Justine Henin's comeback fairytale is well and truly alive after the Belgian powered her way into the Australian Open final with a 6-1 6-0 win over China's Zheng Jie in just 51 minutes.
In only the second ever semi-final battle in an Australian Open featuring two unseeded women, Henin, a seven-time Grand Slam title winner who is making a comeback after a two-year hiatus, was dominant in wrapping up a spot in her third Australian Open final against world No.1 Serena Williams.
It will be the first time that arguably the two best women's players of the past decade have met in a Grand Slam final as Henin looks to recapture the title she won in 2004.
Williams leads their head-to-head encounters 7-6 having last beaten Henin in Miami in 2008, but the Belgian has won four of the five times they have played each other in a Grand Slam. Their dream match-up came at the expense of two Chinese players in Zheng and Li Na, neither of which was able to seriously trouble their more-fancied rivals.
While Zheng was able to hold in the opening game of the match, it was all downhill from there as Henin's powerful game took control. The Belgian rifled off 12 winners to one in the first set, breaking her opponent in the third, fifth and seventh games and winning it in just 27 minutes.
Zheng did create three break points, but as was the custom when she was dominating tennis for much of the latter part of the last decade, Henin produced the goods on the big points.
The only sloppy part of Henin's game was her first serve and she struggled to make barely 50 percent, but it didn't seem to affect the match, with Zheng unable to make any inroads. In contrast, Zheng was getting plenty of first serves in, but only managed a partly five points on serve for the second set.
The end was mercifully quick for Zheng, with Henin, who won the final 12 games of the match, wasting no time in breaking her three times in the second set, including to love in the final game.
Henin will play her first Grand Slam final since she won the 2007 US Open, looking to emulate the deeds of compatriot Kim Clijsters, who completed a fairytale comeback of her own when she won at Flushing Meadows last year.