SYDNEY, Australia - They say seven is a lucky number, and Serena Williams surely thinks so tonight, for that is the number of match points the Medibank International's top seed has saved so far this week. In the first round on Sunday she was four times down for the count against Samantha Stosur; on the Ken Rosewall Arena on Wednesday night she faced imminent peril three times against Caroline Wozniacki. And yet the 27-year-old is safely through to the semis to face third seed Elena Dementieva; Dinara Safina is to play Ai Sugiyama in the other half of the draw.
Indeed, Williams wasn't the only star to do it tough against a talented young opponent in the Sydney quarters. Earlier in the day, second seed Safina was patchy against 18-year-old Alizé Cornet, while Dementieva worked even harder for her win over sixth seed Agnieszka Radwanska. By contrast, world No.29 Sugiyama was handed a walkover by 2008 runner-up Svetlana Kuznetsova, who sustained an abdominal muscle strain in the latter stages of her second round match against Kaia Kanepi.
So next up for the Japanese veteran is Safina, who was far from satisfied with her performance against Cornet. Last week at the Hopman Cup, Safina was little troubled by the French teen, but it was a different story today as the pair traded breaks in the early stages of the first set. Safina made the breakthrough for 5-3 and held to take the opener, but with the air temperature hovering around 36 Celsius (97 Fahrenheit), two dramatic momentum shifts were to follow. Cornet raced to a 4-1 lead in the second set, but her unforced errors helped the Russian win five games in a row to end the contest, 63 64.
Afterwards, Safina provided a characteristically honest assessment of a match she felt she didn't deserve to take. "Of course I'm happy that I won, but I think it was a disaster, the match today," she said, despite recording a respectable 71 percent first service percentage to Cornet's 46 percent. "If she'd been a little bit more experienced I would have lost. I don't know what she did at 4-1, but I can say she gave me the match.
"I was a set up, and then I just wasn't aggressive enough," Safina continued. "Nothing was coming from me, it was all about her - either she makes a shot or she doesn't make it. It's not the way I want to win the match. I want to win it by myself, not that the girl loses to me.
"Either I play completely differently tomorrow or I may as well just take my racquets and go, because that's not the way I want to play. Sugi's a very aggressive player, and she will not lose the match, for sure."
In a battle between two of the most consistent baseliners in the business, Dementieva toiled for 2hrs 45mins to suppress Radwanska, who won the pair's last match in the final at Istanbul. Up a set and a break, the Olympic gold medalist seemed on course for a clear-cut result, until the young Pole got the better of a service-break strewn second set as both struggled to get their first serves in.
But it was Dementieva who was first to hold in the decider, and although last week's Auckland champion failed to capitalize on two match points at 5-3 on Radwanska's serve, she brushed aside a double fault to serve out the match, 62 57 64.
If the feature night match was laden with great expectations, the protagonists delivered - and then some.
Twice in the first set, eighth seed Wozniacki broke free of Williams, and both times the world No.2 clawed her way level. But the Danish 18-year-old, ranked 12th in the world, held her nerve in the tie-break to take the opener.
Williams drew first blood in the second set to move ahead 2-1, and broke again in the ninth game to take the match to the decider. Although Wozniacki regained the momentum for 2-0, Williams broke right back and games went with serve until Wozniacki surged to 6-5. Unable to convert three match points on her serve, the 18-year-old faded in the ensuing tie-break. Williams' 67(5) 63 76(3) victory marked the eighth time in her illustrious career the American has saved match points before winning a match.
"It definitely was lucky today - maybe I do have Irish bones in me," smiled Williams afterwards. "I think this is the best she's ever played in her life, really. Hopefully she'll keep it up."
Earlier, in a doubles quarterfinal, No.1 seeds Cara Black and Liezel Huber overcame a slow start to down Sorana Cirstea and Vera Dushevina in a match tie-break. The only seeds left in the draw, the world champions take on Nathalie Dechy and Casey Dellacqua in Thursday's semis. The other semifinal sees Hsieh Su-Wei and Peng Shuai play Nuria Llagostera Vives and Maria José Martínez Sánchez.
