May 20, 2006 6 min read

ROME (AP) – Former champions Venus Williams and Martina Hingis will battle for a spot in another Italian Open final. Williams, who beat Hingis en route to the 1999 championship, defeated Jelena Jankovic of Serbia-Montenegro 5-7, 6-4, 6-1 on Friday to reach her first tour semifinals since last July.

Hingis, who downed Williams in the 1998 final at Foro Italico, stopped Flavia Pennetta of Italy 6-3, 6-1.

Saturday’s other semifinal will be an all-Russian matchup between Svetlana Kuznetsova and Dinara Safina.

Williams and Hingis met two weeks ago in Warsaw, where Williams came back from a set and a break down to win. With Hingis having come out of retirement, it was their first match in four years.

“It’s always a great experience playing her,” Hingis said. “We’ve had so many great matches over the years. Hopefully we’ll have another one here.”

Williams struggled with her serve again, saving eight of 15 break points, but wore out Jankovic. The American sat out three months this year with elbow and arm injuries, and said she’s still recovering.

“I’m used to playing with a big serve. When I don’t have it, it’s definitely a major adjustment,” she said. “I have to learn to play without it, but I’m hoping that I won’t have to for the rest of my career.”

Pennetta has made three finals this year, but Hingis gave her only eight games in Berlin last week, and four Friday.

“I played really well today, I was just trying not to get the public going too much,” Hingis said of the crowd, which was pulling for Pennetta.

In the other quarterfinals, Kuznetsova saved a match point before beating local qualifier Romina Oprandi 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (4), and Safina routed fifth-seeded Elena Dementieva 6-1, 6-1.

Oprandi, ranked 133rd, had won 15 straight matches including two minor circuit events before facing Kuznetsova, the 2004 U.S. Open champ.

She had a match point at 5-3 in the third set but returned a serve just wide.

“My luck ran out,” Oprandi said.

Kuznetsova was relieved.

“She has a very good game. I just stuck in the match. I had to play my best,” she said.

Safina, who ousted favorite Kim Clijsters on Thursday, was more patient than Dementieva, who served seven double faults and won 30 percent of points on her second serve.

“The score was easy, but I know what she doesn’t like and I played my game today,” said Safina, the sister of two-time Grand Slam winner Marat Safin.

Grand Prix SAR

RABAT, Morocco – China’s Yan Zi advanced to the semifinals of the Grand Prix SAR on Friday, beating third-seeded Emilie Loit of France 1-6, 7-6 (6), 7-6 (4).

Yan, already through to the doubles final with Australian Open-winning partner Zheng Jie, will face American Meghann Shaughnessy in the semifinals. Shaughnessy, seeking her first singles title in three years, beat Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-1, 6-4.

In the other semifinal, fifth-seeded Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine will face eighth-seeded Martina Sucha of Slovakia. Bondarenko beat Hama Sromova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 7-6 (2), and Sucha defeated qualifier Anne Kremer of Luxembourg 3-6, 6-1, 6-0.

Hamburg Masters

HAMBURG, Germany (AP) – Mario Ancic rallied from a set and a break down to defeat Nikolay Davydenko 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-3 and reach the semifinals of the Hamburg Masters.

“A win is a win. It doesn’t matter how it comes,” Ancic said. “Though it would be nice to get off the court a bit faster. But these are top-10 guys and you have to expect hard matches if you are going to come out the winner.”

It was his second straight win over a top-10 player, and fourth this year.

The Croatian will face eighth-seeded Tommy Robredo on Saturday, while the other semifinal pits the Czech Republic’s Radek Stepanek against unseeded Argentine Jose Acasuso.

For the first time since 1997, the quarterfinals featured nobody who had won a Masters Series event.

Ancic’s fortitude has been impressive lately. He earned a dramatic three-set victory over fifth-seeded James Blake to reach the quarterfinals, and came from behind to beat Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the second round.

Last week in Rome, Ancic saved three match points against France’s Florent Serra and Spain’s Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo.

“To be there with the best players you have to be really tough. I showed the last couple of weeks I can come back from tough situations,” Ancic said. “This builds confidence, knowing when you are down and nothing is going your way you can still turn it around. Even better for my self-belief is I did it with top-10 guys, on clay, which I wouldn’t pick as my first surface.”

Davydenko led by a set and 3-0.

“I’m shocked I lost this match,” the Russian said. “I lost concentration in the second set and he broke back. He was fighting and fighting. I lost confidence after the tiebreak. In my head I was a bit crazy. Sometimes he was hitting balls and I didn’t know how.”

Robredo, the highest remaining seed at No. 8, defeated Spanish countryman David Ferrer 7-6 (8), 6-4. Robredo reached the Barcelona final last month. He lost his only previous meeting with Ancic.

Stepanek defeated Max Mirnyi of Belarus 7-6 (5), 6-1, while Acasuso beat Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-1, 6-7 (6), 6-3.

Stepanek missed serving out the first set at 5-4, but won the last three points of the tiebreaker.

“That was the deciding moment of the match,” Stepanek said. “I showed him I’m the one who will go for it. And maybe his confidence dropped.”

He has a 2-1 record against Acasuso.

Acasuso improved to 16-4 on clay this year, including his third career title at Vina del Mar, Chile.

He squandered a match point against Verdasco in the second set tiebreaker but rolled through the final set.

“I have been playing well since the beginning of the year,” Acasuso said. “In my two previous Masters on clay, in Monte Carlo and Rome, I lost in the second round but I had chances in both matches. So I knew that a week like this would come around for me.

“But obviously I want to take advantage of this moment because I don’t want to stop here.”