PARIS (AP)—Top-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia rallied to beat Andrea Petkovic of Germany 3-6, 6-4, 6-2 on Friday to reach the semifinals of the Open GDF Suez.
Flavia Pennetta also advanced with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Tathiana Garbin in an all-Italian quarterfinal. She will next face Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic, who cruised past sixth-seeded Shahar Peer of Israel 6-3, 6-0.
Dementieva will meet American teenager Melanie Oudin, who topped Agnes Szavay of Hungary 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.
The unseeded Petkovic broke for a 3-1 lead in the first set and closed it out when Dementieva sent a service return into the net.
“In the first set, I’m putting pressure on her and she wasn’t able to put pressure on me,” Petkovic said. “It was a big surprise.”
Dementieva dropped serve in the opening game of the second set before breaking to level at 2-2. She then slammed a return winner in the 10th game to earn three break points, winning the set on an unforced error from Petkovic.
In the decider, Dementieva jumped out to a 3-1 lead as a tired Petkovic started to make more unforced errors. The Russian won the match when Petkovic sent a forehand into the net.
“She’s a young player with a lot of talent,” Dementieva said of Petkovic. “She had nothing to lose today against me. She was going for her game, for her shots. She put a lot of pressure on me in her service games. Her baseline game is pretty solid. It was a tough win for me.
“It looks like she has a very powerful game. I was very impressed with her serve today. She was moving well, was very aggressive. For sure, she’s going to improve her ranking position.”
After winning two Fed Cup matches to give the United States a 4-1 win over France last week, Oudin has beaten three players ranked higher than her: Sorana Cirstea of Romania, Patty Schnyder of Switzerland and Szavay.
“I guess France seems to like me now,” Oudin said. “I haven’t had very good experiences here in the past, but I think I’m going to be changing my mind after this tournament.”
Szavay wasted seven breakpoint chances, while Oudin converted five of seven.
“I’ve always been a big fighter,” Oudin said. “I just kept fighting and she gave me a couple of free points in the second. And then I started playing a lot better and got more aggressive. That has really helped me win the second and the third.
“Tennis is such a weird game, it can change like that. My timing was a little off in the first set. It started clicking for me (in the second set). I just started getting some confidence.”
Meanwhile, Pennetta said after beating Garbin on her fifth match point that it was difficult to be ruthless against her friend.
“It was not easy because we know each other very well,” the second-seeded Pennetta said. “We are friends, we spend time outside the court. But when you go in the court, you just have to concentrate on your game and try to forget there is a friend on the other side.
“I didn’t make a lot of mistakes from the beginning. I was very aggressive and she didn’t play her game.”
In another quarterfinal, Safarova won 10 straight games after trailing 3-2 against Peer.
“I was happy with my game today,” said Safarova, the 2007 finalist. “I was serving very well. I was returning her serve pretty well. When I broke her serve, it was a bit easier for me because she started to make more mistakes.
“I have really good memories from 2007. The crowd was great in supporting me. I was really surprised that they remembered me from three years ago.”