French teenager Tatiana Golovin outserved Venus Williams to win their quarter-final 6-2, 6-3 at the Bausch & Lomb Championships on Friday.
"I put a lot of pressure on her right from the start," Golovin said. "I was getting everything back. When she kind of came back, I fought through that. It was one of the better matches I've played all season, so I'm really happy."
The eighth-seeded Golovin broke unseeded Williams twice in the first set.
PHOTO: AP
Overall, she took five of her nine break chances, while Williams converted the only two she earned after trailing 4-0 in the second.
"We were back on serve, so that was nice," Williams said. "But those last two games went a lot quicker than I wanted them to."
Golovin also won their only previous meeting in 2005.
Williams is trying to regain her premier status after an eight-month layoff with a left wrist injury.
The five-time Grand Slam champion, playing only her third tournament this year, was 5-2 since winning her 34th career title in Memphis in February.
Seeking her first WTA Tour title, Golovin will meet another 19-year-old in the semi-finals, sixth-seeded Ana Ivanovic, who ousted second-seeded Jelena Jankovic 7-5, 6-3 in an all-Serb match.
"I did not have good success with my serve, but at the end, my serve helped me, which was very important," Ivanovic said.
Both players struggled.
"I think for both of us it was not a good match," Jankovic said.
"Today was just one of those bad days when everything was wrong kind of. I played terrible and made so many unforced errors," she said.
Ivanovic has won three out of four against Jankovic.
Sybille Bammer of Austria upset third-seeded Daniela Hantuchova of Slovakia 2-6, 6-2, 6-2 with a huge turnaround.
Hantuchova broke Bammer three times in the first set then never had another break point.
Bammer reached her fourth semi-finals in nine tournaments this year, including her first tour title at Pattaya City, Thailand.
Yesterday, she was scheduled to face top seed and defending champion Nadia Petrova, who beat Dinara Safina 6-4, 7-5 to extend her perfect record against her fellow Russian to 5-0, including all three matchups this year.
"It was a long match [2 hours, 2 minutes] and you could see that we were both battling and fighting for every point out there," Petrova said. "But I felt good. I felt strong. The work I've done with my fitness trainer is really showing up."
Petrova has reached the Amelia Island semi-finals in five consecutive appearances since 2001.
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