Alicia Molik still perfectly remembers upsetting Venus Williams at the 2005 Australian Open as the former Australian tennis star says she felt “invincible” going into the matchup and was confident that the American would be in for something different this time. 

Between 1999 and 2004, Molik and Williams played three times and the now seven-time Grand Slam champion won all of those meetings routinely in straight sets. 

But when the two were about to face each other in the 2005 Australian Open round-of-16, Molik – now 43 years old – was playing the tennis of her life and being on an eight-match winning streak at the start of the year. Also, the Australian was coming off a big second part of the 2004 season that saw her win three titles and win a bronze medal at the 2004 Athens Olympics. 

However, even though Molik was in outstanding form, Williams was still widely regarded as one of the best players in the game and she was a four-time Slam champion at the time. 

And when their Australian Open match started, it was clear right from the start that Molik would not go down easy this time. In the end, not only that Molik didn’t go down without a fight, but she also beat Williams 7-5 7-6 (3) to make her first Grand Slam quarterfinal in front of her home fans. 

“I wasn’t the same player as the times I’d played her before. I hadn’t won as much, I didn’t have the same ranking, I hadn’t beaten as many top-tier players,” Molik told the Australian Open website.

“I was riding high. I felt invincible. I was training so well, so hard. I was obviously fit, strong. No matter what the score was, what the temperature was, whether I had niggles, soreness – I just knew I’d get through all these difficult matches.”

Molik tells how her coach prepared her for the Williams matchup

At the time, Molik was working with coach David Taylor. And after the Australian booked a meeting with former world No. 1 Williams, coach Taylor did an in-depth analysis of how to approach the matchup and how to attack the American. 

After the analysis was completed, coach Taylor advised Molik to try to go after Williams’ forehand wing with her serve – defend with slices when needed to prolong points and wait for an opportunity to attack – and to try to be aggressive when she had a clean opportunity to do so. 

“It didn’t happen overnight. A lot of my confidence came from wins, but I had an incredibly long and hard pre-season. I put in a lot of months of really, really hard work, on the court in the hot summer, in the gym – I remember it pretty clearly. It was pretty full-on to prepare myself for everything and anything,” Molik explained.

“It was the first (Australian) summer I really felt capable of delivering. And I was delivering. I’d won Sydney, I was playing really well. There’s so many matches you go into and you’re sort of, ‘yeah, I’ve got a chance, I feel I might be able to do this’. But I actually knew I could beat her.

“(Dave and I) really spent a lot of time to think through and map out how the match probably would go. So I felt like in a way I’d sort of played it out in my mind a number of times before actually walking out on the court.”

Molik on if beating Williams at the Australian Open was her ‘career highlight’

When Molik beat Williams, it wasn’t just her first win over the American but also something that landed her first Grand Slam quarterfinal appearance and guaranteed a top-10 spot. 

“It’s right up there. Because Venus was really close to being at her best then. It was incredibly significant. Not just (beating) Venus; it was the round of 16 at the Australian Open. It also meant so much, because it’s on home soil,” Molik said when answering if beating Williams at Melbourne Park was the highlight of her career.

“It was incredible. It’s sort of that moment you go, ‘oh God, I did it! I can do this! I did it at home’ – it’s twice as hard on home soil. That night I felt like I was really in the zone. It was the culmination I think of the hard work, the belief, the preparation, the match wins in the lead-up, for confidence.”

After beating Williams, Molik suffered a heartbreaking quarterfinal loss after former world No. 1 Lindsay Davenport outlasted her 6-4 4-6 9-7. 

In the rest of her career, Molik never again made a Slam quarterfinal and she was also beaten by Williams in 2007 Tokyo in their last matchup.