PARIS - Australian Samantha Stosur pulled off a stunning 6-2 6-7 8-6 victory over top seed Serena Williams yesterday to reach the semifinals of the French Open for the second year in succession.

PARIS - Australian Samantha Stosur pulled off a stunning 6-2 6-7 8-6 victory over top seed Serena Williams yesterday to reach the semifinals of the French Open for the second year in succession.

Williams had a matchpoint at 5-4 in the third set of a see-sawing contest but seventh seed Stosur fought back to clinch a dramatic victory and set up a last-four clash with fourth seed Jelena Jankovic of Serbia.

Stosur used her fierce forehand to force a succession of errors from the world No 1, breaking twice to take the opening set and surge ahead 5-3 in the second.

Williams slowly found her range and after taking the tie break 7-2 she looked set for victory when Stosur wavered when serving to stay in the match in the 10th game of a tense deciding set. Williams just missed a forehand pass on her only match point and was broken in the next game before Stosur held serve to wrap up victory after 2 hours and 24 minutes.

l Jelena Jankovic of Serbia also reached the semifinals for the third time in her career with a 7-5 6-4 defeat of Kazakhstan's Yaroslava Shvedova. The fourth seed was given a tough time by the world No 36 but enjoyed some unlikely assistance from her opponent near the end of the contest.

Shvedova missed an easy smash to hand Jankovic a break of serve and level the second set at 4-4 and then served a double fault on match point down. Jankovic will face Williams or Stosur in the last four. - Reuters