Serena Williams [Images] overpowered top seed Svetlana Kuznetsova 7-6, 6-1 to reach her first Kremlin Cup final on Saturday.

The fourth-seeded American will play Russian Elena Dementieva, who defeated compatriot Dinara Safina 6-1, 6-0, in Sunday's final.

After a tight opening set, Williams eased through a tiebreaker 7-2 and it was a one-way traffic after that.

The former world number one broke a nervy-looking Kuznetsova twice in the second set, which lasted a mere 28 minutes.

It was Williams's second appearance in Moscow [Images], 10 years after her debut when she lost in the first round as a 16-year-old ranked number 448 in the world.

Earlier, Dementieva crushed Safina to advance to her third Kremlin Cup final.

After losing her serve in the second game of the opening set, the 14th-ranked Dementieva, runner-up here in 2001 and in 2004, reeled off 11 straight games to defeat her error-prone opponent in just over an hour.

"It was a much tougher match than the score indicated, but the final will be even tougher," said Dementieva, who turns 26 on Monday.

Later on Saturday, men's top seed and defending champion Nikolay Davydenko faces unseeded Serb Janko Tipsarevic, while fourth seed and 2002 winner Paul-Henri Mathieu of France [Images] meets German Michael Berrer, playing in his first career semi-final on the ATP Tour.

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