Top-seeded Li falls in semif inal
The Italian, ranked 21st, beats world’s No. 2 player and will face Poland’s Radwanska on Sunday.
Australian Open champ upset by Italy’s Pennetta. Radwanska wins.
Flavia Pennetta, a decided underdog, played her way into Sunday’s women’s singles final at the BNP Paribas Open on Friday night. In a stunner, she beat topseeded and reigning Australia Open champion Li Na of China.
The score was 7-6 (5), 6-3, and it was a struggle for both players most of the way.
There were eight consecutive breaks of serve in the first set, which ended on Li’s eighth double fault.
Pennetta, ranked 21st to Li’s No. 2, will play Poland’s Agnieszka Radwanska, second seeded and ranked third. She survived a few shaky moments of her own to get to the final with a 6-3, 6-4 win over Simona Halep of Romania.
Radwanska’s victory had its stops and starts. She won the first set in solid 6-3 fashion and then fell off the ledge for a while, trailing in the second, 3-0.
But almost as quickly as she had gathered herself against Jelena Jankovic’s comeback attempt in the quarterfinals, Radwanska did it again.
Soon, Halep was serving at 3-5 and Radwanska had two match points.
Halep, the hottest player on the tour last year in terms of matches won — she will move up to No. 6 in the WTA rankings next week and become the highest-ranked Romanian woman ever — saved those match points, but she couldn’t stay with Radwanska in the next game, when the Polish star served for the match.
At 40-15, Radwanska approached and volleyed the winner away to wrap up the victory.
Afterward she told a large crowd in the main stadium that she was thrilled to have reached the final here for the first time.
“I finally did it,” she said.
bill.dwyre@latimes.com