DUBAI, Feb 22: Venus Williams suffered her first defeat in six meetings with Sandrine Testud as the French number four seed won 1-6 7-6 6-4 in the semifinals of the Dubai Tennis Championships on Friday.

By an odd coincidence, Testud has now beaten three players who were destined for number one the following week. She defeated Lindsay Davenport in the Filderstadt final in Germany late in 1998 and Jennifer Capriati in the quarter-finals of the same event last October.

Top seeded Williams, who nevertheless takes over next week as the new world number one, was clearly suffering from her troublesome knee, serving 14 double faults as she struggled to push off on her serve.

Although she came out firing at the beginning of the match and took the first set in 21 minutes, Williams often walked gingerly and summonsed the trainer at the end of the set.

It was 10 minutes before play re-started and Williams was no longer able to find the pace or consistency to overwhelm her opponent.

The most obvious sign of Williams’ distress was in her serving, as one serve hit the back-drop and another landed on her own side of the court.

Testud finally found the time to hone her groundstrokes and held a set point at 5-3, but Williams pulled herself out of trouble and took the set to a tiebreak.

Testud edged through that 7-5, but then appeared to have lost her chance of victory as she failed to convert three break points that would have left her serving at 5-2 in the third set.

Williams levelled at 4-4 when Testud double faulted, but she double faulted herself to drop her own serve in the next game.

Despite facing a break point at 5-4, Testud held on to claim a place in her first final since she won in Hawaii last September. She will meet the winner of another French-U.S. semifinal between Amelie Mauresmo and Monica Seles.

Thursday’s quarterfinals results:

1-Venus Williams (U.S.) beat Anastasia Myskina (Russia) 6-0 3-6 6-4; 3-Amelie Mauresmo (France) beat Tina Pisnik (Slovenia) 6-1 6-2; 4-Sandrine Testud (France) beat 6-Tamarine Tanasugarn (Thailand) 6-2 6-0; 2-Monica Seles (U.S.) beat 7-Angeles Montolio (Spain) 6-0 6-2—Reuters