Serena Williams battles off Caroline Wozniacki to advance to Cincinnati final

World number one Serena Williams continued her winning streak as she moved to within one win of a second pre-US Open hardcourt title on Saturday, after she battled back from a set to beat Caroline Wozniacki to reach the Cincinnati final.

The American, who claimed her 61st career WTA title at Stanford two weeks ago, defeated Wozniacki 2-6, 6-2, 6-4 and will now face Serbian tennis ace Ana Ivanovic in the finals.

Ivanovic battled on to beat Russian tennis star Maria Sharapova 6-2, 5-7, 7-5 and set up a Cincinnati final against Williams, Sport24 reported.

Williams, playing a third tournament in a row for the first time since late 2007, improved her 2014 match record to 37-6. She said that she needed a set to find her game after a slow start in a match which featured 15 breaks of serve, seven of them in the final set.

Williams said that she had been feeling tired during the match day, so in the second set she just told herself to hit big serves.

Williams, who followed up her win in Stanford by reaching the semi-finals last week at Montreal, where she lost to her sister Venus, added that she gave all that she had in herself.

Wozniacki came to the match after beating two top 10 players in a row, Angelique Kerber and Agnieszka Radwanska, for first time since the 2010 WTA Finals.

Wozniacki, who lost to Williams in three sets in the Montreal quarter-finals, won the opening set in half an hour despite double-faulting away a service game.

But The American stepped up a gear in the second, helped to an early break by another of Wozniacki's double faults. The third was a roller-coaster for both players, who are good friends off the court.

Meanwhile, after Ivanovic's victory Russian superstar Sharapova leads the Serb 8-4 in their career series, the report added.