Venus Williams reaches Wimbledon semis with win over Jelena Ostapenko

WIMBLEDON, England — Venus Williams played her 100th career match at Wimbledon on Tuesday and made it a winning memory.

The 10th seed, Williams ousted reigning French Open champion Jelena Ostapenko 6-3, 7-5 to reach the Wimbledon semifinals for a second consecutive year.

"I love this game. That's why I put in the effort and the time," Williams said. "It's a beautiful game. It's been so good to me."

Her winning Wimbledon match record now stands at 86-14. Her younger sister Serena, on maternity leave at the moment, has an 86-10 record at Wimbledon. Only Martina Navratilova (120-14) and Chris Evert (96-15) have played more matches in the Open era at Wimbledon.

Williams, 37, who won five of her seven career Grand Slam titles at Wimbledon, is the oldest player to reach the semifinals here at 37 years, 29 days. The previous oldest player was Navratilova, who was 37 years, 258 days old when she journeyed to the finals in 1994.

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At this year's Australian Open, Williams reached her first Grand Slam final since playing in the Wimbledon final in 2009. On both occasions, she lost out on the title to Serena.

It was a steady quarterfinal showing by Williams, who didn’t take too many chances in the 73-minute first-time encounter against the 13th-seeded Ostapenko. She waited for her chances — one break point in the first set and two in the second set — and took advantage of all three opportunities.

Williams served a strong first set, but she did falter a bit in the second set, seeing her serve broken on one of two offerings to Ostapenko.

She will play Britain's Johanna Konta in Thursday's semifinal.