Serena gives full credit to Pliskova for comeback in Oz

In Melbourne on Tuesday, Serena Williams was moments away from entering the locker room with a semifinal berth in hand—but the age-old lesson proved true: the match is never over until the final ball is struck. It certainly looked over. The 23-time Grand Slam champion was up 5-1, 40-30 in the third set against Karolina Pliskova.

Instead, what happened was remarkable, and downright unbelievable to everyone but Pliskova. The Czech played "lights out" to save match point after match point (four in total) after Williams tweaked her left ankle on her first opportunity.

"I don't really take losses well. But, Karolina literally played lights out starting 5-1, 40-30. Literally I've never seen anything like it," Serena said. "If anything, I think that's a little bit easier to know, OK, next time I'm up 5-1 against anybody, whether it's her or anyone, I just need to make sure I play lights out when I have match points."

Pliskova reeled off six games in a row to reach her first Australian Open semifinal, 6-4, 4-6, 7-5, where she'll take on Noami Osaka.

"My mind was in the locker room. I was still here," the world No. 6 said.

Is this Serena's toughest Grand Slam loss? It may be the craziest given her immense lead and what appeared to be full control, but given it was a quarterfinal, it's not her toughest.

"I can't really say that it's incredibly painful as opposed to what can I do better," she said.

Her loss to Osaka in the US Open final may be up near the top—due mostly to all the controversy as she was never leading—and so would her 2015  US Open semifinal loss to Roberta Vinci when she was two matches away from a calendar-year Slam.

"That's how it is in tennis. You need luck, of course, because this is I think not happening often, maybe once in life," Pliskova said. "But I went for it. I just said, like whatever. Maybe this can be over, but let's just try this game. I was with the wind, which kind of helped me little bit. I just went for my shots."

To her own full credit, Serena was poised and calm, cool and collected during the match and in press. She's still just 10 months into her comeback. Furthermore, the 37-year-old believes she's got more chances left in her to get to Grand Slam No. 24.

"Right now would be Roland Garros because that's the next one, the next Grand Slam for me," she said. "But, I mean, 22 is close, 23 wasn't close, but 22 was close for a long time. 18 was close forever. We'll see."

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