NEW YORK, Sept 6: Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne ensured American plans for a Flushing Meadows party fell flat on Friday, the two Belgians ousting home favourites to reach the final of the US Open.

Second seed Henin-Hardenne diced with defeat before sabotaging Jennifer Capriati’s Open dreams in a 4-6 7-5 7-6 semi-final victory over three hours and three minutes full of high drama.

It was in stark contrast to Clijsters’s calculated 6-2 6-3 demolition of Lindsay Davenport in their last-four pairing, as the rain-hit Open staged an impromptu Friday evening session to catch up on chaotic schedules.

“I am so tired, I just gave everything I could even though I could have lost,” said Henin-Hardenne, who overcame cramping in the final set to clinch the deciding tiebreak 7-4.

The effort meant she needed treatment into the early hours of Saturday morning and was fighting to be fit for her final date less than 24 hours later.

She was put on a drip for dehydration after the match and her condition will be re-examined on Saturday afternoon before she decides whether she is fit enough to walk out for the final at 8 p.m. on Saturday (0000 GMT).

“I will only go on court if I can compete,” she said.

If she recovers, the 21-year-old will seek to repeat her French Open final victory over Clijsters in June.

For Capriati, the immediate future involved coming to terms with failure in the U.S. Open semi-finals for the third time.

“It hurts,” she said after storming off Arthur Ashe stadium before more than 13,000 disbelieving fans.

In 1991, she had been two points from victory against Monica Seles as a 15-year-old phenomenon, before Seles came back to complete a three-set win.

She lost in the last four again in 2001 but, on Friday, it looked for all the world as though the three-times grand slam champion, a native New Yorker, would break her hometown hoodoo.

On 11 occasions, Henin-Hardenne was just two points from defeat — which means that, on 11 occasions, Capriati was again two points from victory.

Those words will come back to haunt her when she recalls this classic, especially if a U.S. Open final ultimately proves elusive.

Capriati even served for the match at 5-3 in the second set and 5-3 in the decider, but still fell agonisingly short.

Her anguish was clear in the tiebreak, as error after error all but gifted Henin-Hardenne an escape.

Clijsters’s progress was memorable only for her, for it provided her with a chance to silence critics who say her number one world ranking is worthless without a grand slam title.

“There’s been a lot of attention on that,” said Clijsters, who usurped the injured Serena Williams as the game’s best last month.

“But it doesn’t bother me. And I think a lot of people forget I’m only 20 years old.”

The absence of Serena and sister Venus Williams, champions at Flushing Meadows for each of the last four years, had always threatened to produce an all-Belgian final.

Although American television’s worst nightmare, Clijsters was happy to oblige her country, outmanoeuvring the cumbersome third-seeded Davenport in just one hour three minutes.

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