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INDIAN WELLS, California - Poland's Agnieszka Radwanska booked a semi-final berth at the Indian Wells WTA hardcourt tournament Wednesday, denying Elena Dementieva a shot at a fourth final of the year.
Radwanska, seeded fifth, finished off a 6-4, 6-3 victory over the fourth-seeded Russian with a flourish, serving a love game and reach the semi-finals for the first time after quarter-final defeats the past two years.
She has reached her second semi-final of the season without dropping a set in four matches.
"This year it's already my second semi-final, so I think I'm doing good," said the world number eight, who had surgery on the middle finger of her right hand after the season-ending Tour Championships last year.
"I will just keep going, working hard. Here, especially in the big tournaments, you have good matches since the third round.
"So it's great that I'm playing good and beating the top players in two sets."
Dementieva, trying to improve on her runner-up finish in 2006, carried plenty of momentum into the tournament. She has reached three finals this season and won two titles - in Sydney and at the Paris Indoors.
But she was disappointed with a sluggish performance.
In each set, Radwanska seized an early break, only to give it back, but she managed to break again in both as she advanced to a meeting with either second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark or China's Australian Open semi-finalist Zheng Jie who meet later Wednesday.
"I was so slow," Dementieva said. "I was reaching for the ball instead of going forward and attack her second serve.
"She slowed down the game a lot and mixed it up a lot. You have to be very aggressive. You have to step forward. You have to create something. I was way too slow."
Radwanska said she was still feeling the after-effects of the finger surgery, and had even switched to a smaller grip on her racquet, but she said she feels she's on the mend.
"If I lose the match I'm not going to say that I'm injured anymore, but it's just sometimes if I'm playing a lot of singles, doubles or really long match, then I can feel the hand," she said.
The remaining two quarter-finals will be played on Thursday, when sixth-seeded Serbian Jelena Jankovic was to take on Russian Alisa Kleybanova and eighth-seeded Australian Samantha Stosur was scheduled to take on Spain's Maria Jose Martinez Sanchez.
- AFP /ls
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