For a second straight year the final of the ASB Classic will be a marquee match-up worthy of the grandest of stages.
After Caroline Wozniacki earlier won through to the decider, Venus Williams gave tournament organisers and fans the final everyone wanted from the moment the pair's participation was confirmed.
The battle between the two former world No 1s follows last year's memorable meeting between Williams and Ana Ivanovic, won by the Serb.
Williams will tomorrow have the opportunity to go one better and, judging by her form this week, it's an opportunity that will not slip from her grasp. The seven-time grand slam champion, yet to drop a set in the tournament, easily dispatched Lauren Davis in the maiden encounter between the two Americans, winning 6-0 6-3 in little more than an hour.
Davis, 13 years her opponent's junior, said before the match it would be a dream to play one of the Williams sisters. But that dream rapidly descended into a nightmare worthy of Dante when Williams produced the power and panache that took her to the top of the sport.
The first game of the match, after a brief rain delay, provided Davis an ominous harbinger of what was to follow. The four points flew by as Williams won the game to love, sending Davis to every corner of Stanley Street's centre court.
Davis had shown earlier in the tournament her proclivity for running down seemingly lost causes but the force behind some of Williams' ground strokes rendered moot the young American's speed. Williams rarely let that early supremacy slip, breaking Davis in her first service game and soon taking the set 6-0 in just 26 minutes.
Williams had one foot firmly in the final but Davis at least displayed greater resolve in the second set. She won a game, for a start, a small victory greeted by the fans with one of the biggest cheers of the night.
Perhaps encouraged by the applause, Davis even managed to break Williams' serve in the third game of the set. But just when the clash seemed set to follow the formula of Davis' previous three matches this week - all of which saw the 21-year-old badly beaten in the first set before recovering to win in three - Williams broke back.
Just as soon as it appeared, any signs of weakness in Williams were gone. The third seed rediscovered the command that had temporarily deserted her, winning the eighth game before holding serve to take the match.
