Jelena Jankovic cruised into the final of the Indian Wells WTA tournament with a 6-2 6-4 victory over Australian Samantha Stosur on Friday.
The sixth-seeded Serb broke her opponent twice in each set to wrap up the win in one hour 28 minutes on a hot afternoon at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.
Eighth-seeded Stosur had not dropped a set on her way to the last four but struggled for rhythm against her higher-ranked opponent, piling up 36 unforced errors and four double faults.
The match ended when the Australian mistimed a forehand service return which flew skywards and Jankovic celebrated reaching her first WTA final of the year.
"I'm feeling good, going to the finals," the smiling world number nine told reporters. "I had some tough matches here and some good wins.
"I haven't been doing well in the last couple of tournaments. Hopefully I can do it on Sunday," added Jankovic, who faces Dane Caroline Wozniacki or Agnieszka Radwanska of Poland.
"Samantha has an unbelievable serve, one of the best in the women's game, and I was able to return a lot of her first serves. I was putting a lot of pressure on her second serve," added Jankovic.
"So I think that was the key, because I was able to break her quite a few times. And then it made everything easier for me."
Although bitterly disappointed by her performance against Jankovic, Stosur was happy with her overall display at Indian Wells and is projected to break into the top 10 for the first time when the rankings are released on Monday.
"Try and look at the positives," the 11th-ranked Australian said after losing to the Serb for a third successive time.
"It was a great week, but today I definitely didn't play anywhere close to as well as I can.
"Really, I just got frustrated and wasn't able to pull it back. When you're a set down against a quality player, it's always tough to come back."
Second seed Wozniacki and fifth-seeded Radwanska were scheduled to play their semi-final later on Friday.
