Venus Williams saved five match points in the second set and overcame her inconsistent ground game, rallying for a 2-6, 7-6 (4), 6-2 victory over Switzerland's Patty Schnyder on Saturday to reach the final of the Bank of the West Classic.
"It just seems as soon as disaster comes, I somehow find a way out of it," Williams said. "I didn't feel I was really on my game. My feet were slow and she played really well. You have to have that little extra step and I didn't feel like I had that today. I had to fight myself to get it out of me."
She will play for the championship against fourth-seeded Belgian Kim Clijsters, a 6-4, 6-0 winner over Anna-Lena Groenefeld in Saturday's late match.
The second-seeded Williams will play her 500th career match Sunday in the very tournament where she made her debut 11 years ago, when it was in Oakland.
Williams improved to 32-8 this year. She is 6-2 lifetime against Clijsters, and Williams retired in one of the two losses. She has won the last three meetings and her lone loss to Clijsters came in the title match at Hamburg in 2002 on clay.
Andre Agassi used a dazzling mix of shots to defeat Juan Ignacio Chela 6-4, 6-2 and move into the final.
The 35-year-old Agassi, his sights set on next month's US Open, needed just 69 minutes to beat his 25-year-old opponent from Argentina.
The top-seeded Agassi will go for his fourth Los Angeles title on Sunday, facing unseeded Gilles Muller.
Muller, a hard-serving 22-year-old player from Luxembourg, fought back from being down two match points in the second set to upset second-seeded Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia 4-6, 7-6 (4), 6-1.
The final will be just the second on the tour for Muller, who defeated Agassi in the semifinals at Washington last summer before losing to Lleyton Hewitt in the title match.
Defending champion Nicolas Massu lost to unseeded Fernando Verdasco 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 in the semifinals.
Verdasco will meet third-seeded Gaston Gaudio in the final after Gaudio ousted Argentine compatriot Mariano Zabaleta 6-1, 6-1.
With temperatures on court reaching more than 50 degrees C , seventh-seeded Massu of Chile started better than his opponent and dominated the opening set to take a 1-0 lead after just over half an hour.
In the final set, Verdasco broke his opponent early, but fell to pressure from Massu's crashing forehand and gave away his serve in game eight.
Guillermo Coria rallied to beat Filippo Volandri of Italy 4-6, 6-3, 6-2 to advance to the final.
In today's final, Coria will face four-time former champion Carlos Moya, after he defeated Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-4.
Coria, also a finalist at the Masters in Monte Carlos and Rome, was down a set down and a break point for 4-2 to Volandri before he turned around their semifinal.
Coria leads the head-to-head with Moya at 4-2, having won the last four matches. They last met in the 2004 French Open quarterfinals.
Top-seeded Anna Smashnova defeated Croatia's Jelena Kostanic 6-2, 6-0 and will face Colombian qualifier Catalina Castano in the final of the Budapest Grand Prix.
Kostanic, who has never won a singles title in seven years on the Women's Tennis Association tour, received a warning from the umpire after using foul language and smashing her racket on the clay court.
In the other semifinal, Castano beat qualifier Laura Pous Tio of Spain 6-7 (6), 6-1, 6-0.
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