ranked Dinara Safina beat Venus Williams 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-4 Friday to advance to the finals of the Italian Open, where she will play Svetlana Kuznetsova in an all-Russian clash. Kuznetsova beat Belarusian teenager Victoria Azarenka 6-2, 6-4 in the other semifinal at the Foro Italico. Safina and Williams battled it out with ferocious hitting, with the American often rushing the net to finish off points. Both players fired winners as momentum shifted between the two during their 3 hour, 9 minute match. “It was a very long match and I think I played one of my best tennis (matches), that I hadn't played for a long time,” Safina said. Williams closed out the first-set tie-breaker with a delicate drop volley, and then went on to break her opponent in the opening game of the second set. But the 23-year-old Russian came back to level the match after a little more than two hours. In the third set, players exchanged breaks until Safina got the decisive one and won on her third match point, after committing three double faults and saving four break points. Safina had 32 winners, compared to 38 for Williams. But she also committed fewer unforced errors. Williams, by reaching the semifinals in Rome, is still assured of jumping from her current No. 5 position to third – her highest ranking in six years. The clash Saturday will be a repeat of last week's Porsche GP final in Germany, where Kuznetsova won in straight sets to capture her first title in almost two years. Both players have also been runners-up in Rome, Safina three years ago and Kuznetsova in 2007. Kuznetsova landed little more than half of her first serves but hit 23 winners – 10 more than her opponent – and broke Azarenka three times in the first set. In the second, the sixth-seeded Azarenka pushed ahead with a break but appeared to lose her concentration as she disputed a call by the umpire in the third game. She lost the next five games and lost on the fourth match point. Davydenko in semifinals In Portugal, second-seeded Nikolay Davydenko advanced to the semifinals of the Estoril Open Friday with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over sixth-seeded Mardy Fish. Davydenko, who is playing his fifth tournament of the year after a two-month layoff due to a heel injury, also reached the semifinals of the Barcelona Open last month. Chile's Paul Capdeville also advanced, rallying to beat Spaniard Oscar Hernandez 4-6, 6-1, 6-4. In the women's event, sixth-seeded Ekaterina Makarova reached her second final in two weeks with a 6-3, 6-1 win over eighth-seeded German Anna-Lena Groenefeld. The 20-year-old Russian lost in the final of the Grand Prix SAR in Fez, Morocco, last month. Makarova will meet unseeded Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium in the final on Saturday. Wickmayer's semifinal opponent, seventh-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel, retired with an ankle injury when trailing 3-0 in the first set. The match will be Wickmayer's second career final. Berdych, Youzhny in semis Fourth-seeded Tomas Berdych rallied to outlast former No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt of Australia 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (4) on Thursday for a place in the semifinals of the BMW Open. Hewitt, a wild-card entry, fell to the Czech for the second time in a row. In his first semifinal this year, Berdych will play either Marin Cilic or Jeremy Chardy. Berdych was also a semifinalist in Munich two years ago. Mikhail Youzhny upset seventh-seeded Paul-Henri Mathieu of France 7-5, 3-6, 6-3 to make the semifinals for his best result on the ATP Tour since January 2008. The Russian will play German wild card Daniel Brands, who advanced to his first career semifinal when Potito Starace of Italy retired with a thigh injury, with Brands ahead 6-4, 1
