(MENAFN- Kora) Italian 20th seed Pennetta claimed a surprisingly comfortable 7-6 (7-5) 6-3 victory over Chinese top seed Li in their semi-final at Indian Wells
Li served nine double faults and Pennetta managed six breaks of serve, winning the fifth meeting between the pair to reach her first final at a WTA Premier event
After both players held serve twice to start the encounter, eight consecutive breaks of serve followed to lead to a tie-break
Pennetta skipped out to a 3-1 lead in the tie-break but was pulled back to 3-3 before winning three of the final four points to take the first set
Li went up a break early in the second but her failure to hold serve in the eighth game was decisive, as Pennetta went on to clinch the win on her second match point
Awaiting Pennetta in the final is Radwanska, who crushed Romanian sixth seed Simona Halep 6-3 6-4
The Polish second seed had suffered consecutive losses to Halep € after winning the first three meetings € but made a bright start on her way to victory in one hour and 23 minutes
Radwanska will be playing her first Indian Wells final and sixth at WTA Premier level after winning Tokyo and Beijing in 2011 and Miami in 2012
Against Halep, Radwanska eased out to a 4-0 lead in the first set but did have to recover from a 3-1 deficit in the second
"I played her a couple of weeks ago, so I kind of knew how she's playing - obviously she had really great results for the last couple of months," Radwanska said of Halep
"First of all, she's a very solid player. A lot of things come back and she's really playing deep balls
"What I was trying to do today was play aggressive from the beginning of the match and really just trying to go for my shots. I was lucky.
Pennetta crushed Radwanska 6-4 6-1 when they met in Dubai earlier this year but failed to win a set in the four meetings prior
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