THE ASSOCIATED PRESS BERLIN -- Dinara Safina ended Serena Williams's 17-match winning streak with a 2-6, 6-1, 7-6 (5) victory on Friday to reach the German Open semifinals. The 17th-ranked Russian kept pressuring Williams' backhand, the same tactic that worked a day earlier in an upset of top-ranked Justine Henin of Belgium. Both players held serve throughout the final set, before Williams let a 4-3 lead in the tiebreaker slip away. The American sent a forehand long and wide to end the two-hour match. Williams, chasing a fourth straight title, appeared poised to improve on a 21-1 record this year without trouble until Safina's hard shots began to land in the second set. Williams was the 10th top-10 victim for the 22-year-old Safina, the sister of two-time Grand Slam champion Marat Safin. After a 2007 slump, the Russian said a win last month against Lindsay Davenport at the Sony Ericsson Open restored her belief in her ability to beat the top players. Safina broke twice to start the second set, whipping a shot past Williams at the net to take a 4-0 lead. She will face Victoria Azarenka in Saturday's semifinal, after the 18-year-old Belarusian ousted 15th-seeded Alona Bondarenko of Ukraine 7-6 (2), 6-2.
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