Wozniacki, Dementieva reach Pan Pacific Open final

TOKYO -- Caroline Wozniacki survived a late comeback to beat Victoria Azarenka of Belarus 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-4 on Friday and reach the final of the Pan Pacific Open.

Wozniacki will meet Elena Dementieva in the title match after the Russian beat French Open champion Francesca Schiavone of Italy 6-4, 7-5 in the other semifinal.

The top-seeded Dane could overtake Serena Williams as No. 1 in the world rankings if she lifts the trophy here and reaches the quarterfinals or better in Beijing next week.

She raced to a 5-0 lead in the third set before the eighth-seeded Azarenka closed the gap to 5-4. Wozniacki held serve and won the match when Azarenka's return went long.

"At 5-love I felt really good, I thought the match was mine," Wozniacki said. "Then Victoria started playing well and all of a sudden the score is 5-4 and I knew I had to close it out with my serve."

Both players struggled with their serve. Wozniacki conceded four double faults while Azaranka had 12, including one that allowed Wozniacki to level the second set 6-6.

Azarenka won the tiebreaker to send the match into a third set.

Wozniacki looked to be on her way to an easy final set when Azarenka broke her to win her first game of the third and make it 5-1. Azarenka then held serve, broke Wozniacki again in the eighth game and held again to pull within one game.

"The third set was really tough," Wozniacki said. "It was like a new match, a new game."

Azarenka, who had beaten Wozniacki twice before, said it would have been tough to come back all the way from a 5-0 deficit.

"I may have come back from 5-1 or 5-2 before, but never 5-love," Azarenka said. "I lost my concentration but it's hard to keep your concentration for that long."