Monday, August 14 2006 18:59 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Los Angeles: Seven-time Grand Slam champion Serena Williams reaches the semi-finals of the 600,000-dollar WTA US Open tuneup here Friday (11 Aug, 2006) with a 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-4 victory over Meghann Shaughnessy.

Williams, playing just her third tournament of a season that included a six-month injury layoff, fires 12 aces past Shaughnessy and has just one double fault in the 2hr 39minute encounter.

"What's working right now is my serve," says Williams, who takes her lengthy injury layoff after an early exit at the Australian Open, and returned in Cincinnati last month.

"It really was steady today. I only hit one double fault today, that's how I used to play."

Williams, who rallied to beat seventh-seeded Daniela Hantuchova in three sets on Thursday (10 Aug, 2006) night, wastes no time on Friday (11 Aug, 2006) in digging herself out of the hole after dropping the first-set tiebreaker to Shaughnessy. "I honestly should have won that first set," says Williams, who has three chances to break Shaughnessy in the fourth game.

"I missed a couple of easy shots, I let it slip away." But she wins the second with three breaks of serve, Shaughnessy double-faulting on Williams's third set point.

"I had a big letdown at the beginning of the second," Shaughnessy admits.

"She started going for her shots, and that changed the whole momentum of the match."

But Shaughnessy, ranked 79th in the world, makes Williams keep working. Williams breaks Shaughnessy to love in the eighth game of the third, but dropps her own serve for the first time all day when serving for the match.

In the end, however, Shaughnessy goes with a whimper. After saving one match point with an ace, she double-faulted on the next. Williams, who fell out of the top 100 for the first time since 1997 during her injury absence this year, says she is pleased with her continued progress.

"I'm still on a steady track up," says Williams, whose semi-final appearance should put her around 80 in the rankings released on Monday (7 Aug, 2006).

"I'm definitely getting more match tough. Winning a couple of three-setters is always good. I feel like I'm climbing up."

She admits that she still feels some intermittent pain in her left knee, and she plays with her left ankle taped after twisting it in a fall during her match on Thursday (10 Aug, 2006) night.

Shaughnessy says she does not see any reason Williams cannot make it all the way back to the summit of the game. "She moves great," Shaughnessy says.

"When she was in her prime she was probably a little more match fit, but she obviously has the skill and ability to bring it back where she wants to be." Williams next faces Jelena Jankovic, who beat fellow Serbian Ana Ivanovic 6-4, 7-6 (8/6).

Top-seeded Maria Sharapova will seek to maintain her momentum as she takes on fifth-seeded compatriot Dinara Safina. Sharapova, who took a lengthy break herself in the wake of a semi-final exit at Wimbledon, returns to triumph in San Diego last week and has been untroubled in her march to the quarter-finals here.

She will have a chance to avenge a French Open fourth-round loss to Safina in June. In fact, Safina has won their last two encounters to even the series head-to-head at two victories apiece. In the remaining quarter-final, third-seeded Russian Elena Dementieva, ranked sixth in the world, takes on US wildcard Bethanie Mattek. Mattek, ranked 128th, ousted eighth-seeded Italian Flavia Pennetta en route to the quarters.