AMELIA ISLAND (Florida), April 12: Top-seeded Maria Sharapova advanced to the Amelia Island Championship semi-finals after a hard-earned 6-7, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Ukraine’s Alona Bondarenko on Friday.The Australian Open champion will meet former world number one Lindsay Davenport in the semi-finals after the American beat Hungary’s Agnes Szavay 6-4, 7-6, while Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova will play Alize Cornet in the other semi-final.

Cornet beat 13th-seeded compatriot Virginie Razzano 6-4, 6-2 while Cibulkova beat France’s Amelie Mauresmo 6-1, 7-6.

Sharapova, who needed three sets and three hours, 27 minutes to beat Anabel Medina-Garrigues on Thursday, needed another three sets and almost three hours on Friday to beat Bondarenko.

Sharapova had a mixed service game, combining 11 aces with eight double faults though her serve was conclusive in the third set when she won 93 per cent of her first serve points.

Bondarenko won the first set when she capitalised on a number of unforced errors from the Russian, but the momentum of the match turned in the sixth game of the second set when Sharapova broke Bondarenko’s serve with a succession of forehand winners.

The Ukrainian’s composure evaporated, smashing the court with her racquet several times after the game and she never recovered, winning just three more games in the match.

In the late match, Cibulkova won the first set in just 36 minutes, but had to rally from 5-3 down in the second to force a tiebreaker.

She lost the first three points and later trailed 5-3 in the tiebreak before she rattled off the next three points and sealed victory when Mauresmo double faulted.

Cibulkova had never met Mauresmo before Friday’s match although she practiced with her during the Miami tournament.Results:

Quarter-finals (prefix number denotes seeding):

Dominika Cibulkova (Slovakia) bt 11-Amelie Mauresmo (France) 6-1, 7-6(6); 16-Lindsay Davenport (US) bt 8-Agnes Szavay (Hungary) 6-4, 7-6(3); 1-Maria Sharapova (Russia) bt 10-Alona Bondarenko (Ukraine) 6-7(9), 6-3, 6-2; Alize Cornet (France) bt 13-Virginie Razzano (France) 6-4, 6-2.

—Reuters