The 13th seed saw off fourth-seeded compatriot, and overwhelming favourite, Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 6-2 and will face second seed of Serbia Ana Ivanovic, who overwhelmed compatriot and third seed Jelena Jankovic in the other pre-final, in Saturday’s final.
Marat Safin won the US Open and Australian Open before his career went into steep decline, while a 2002 semi-final appearance was his best performance at Roland Garros.
Few would begrudge his little sister from triumphing in what will be her first Grand Slam final after staging two carbon copy comebacks in the previous rounds.
The 22-year-old saw off fellow Russians, top seed Maria Sharapova and Elena Dementieva, despite being a set and 2-5 down. For good measure, she also saved a match point in both ties. Safina survived a lengthy test of her opening service game and then broke to lead 2-0.
In a first set, which featured five breaks in nine games, Safina was the cooler of the two Fed Cup teammates when the crucial moment arrived.
A Kuznetsova forehand error gave her a 5-3 lead and she set up set point with a sweet backhand drop shot while Kuznetsova was pinned at the back of the court.
Safina claimed the opener when the fourth seed steered another simple forehand wide.
It was the first set the 22-year-old Kuznetsova had dropped at Roland Garros this year.
The pair exchanged breaks again in the first two games of the second set before Safina nipped ahead to lead 3-2.An out-of-sorts Kuznetsova picked up a code violation for launching a ball, baseball-style, into the upper tiers of the Court Philippe Chatrier as her frustration mounted.
That confidence-boosting performance helped her get through a nervy sixth game before she again broke a flailing Kuznetsova to lead 5-2.
She wrapped up the semi-final when Kuznetsova unleashed another forgettable forehand.
Meanwhile, Ivanovic won an all-Serb battle against Jankovic in the other semi-final.
The 20-year-old Ivanovic defeated the 23-year-old Jankovic 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to reach the final at Roland Garros for the second straight year having lost to Justine Henin in last year’s final.
She also reached the Australian Open final in January but lost to Maria Sharapova.
Jankovic, again wearing an arm brace to ward off the pain she has been feeling from tendonitis, opened the stronger and broke serve to 15 in the second game to take a 3-0 lead.
She threatened to make it 4-0, but Ivanovic held on visibly growing in confidence after winning the game at the end of a long, punishing rally.
She broke back in the following game only to drop her own serve in the next as Jankovic got to 4-2. But the younger woman’s heavier groundstrokes started to make the difference as she won the next four games to take the set 6-4 in 41 minutes.
Jankovic dropped her serve for the fourth straight time to open the second set allowing Ivanovic to jump out into a 2-0 lead.
In stark contrast to the first few games, Ivanovic was looking comfortable on her serve while it was a struggle each time for her opponent on hers.
But all that changed in the sixth game of the set when Ivanovic inexplicably let slip a 40-0 lead to allow Jankovic to draw level at 3-3.
She was broken again two games later and Jankovic served out to level the scores although she needed four set points to do so.
Ivanovic had nervily lost her way and against one of the grittiest players on the women’s circuit that was a fatal mistake.
Jankovic won the first two games of the deciding set to make it seven games in a row, but Ivanovic stopped the rot and got back on level terms at 3-3 by breaking to love in the sixth game.
Another exchange of service breaks took it to 4-4 and two games later Ivanovic played her best game of the semi-final opening up with her groundstrokes to clinch the win.
Results (prefix number denotes seeding):
Women’s singles:
Semi-finals: 13-Dinara Safina (Russia) bt 4-Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia) 6-3, 6-2; 2-Ana Ivanovic (Serbia) bt 3-Jelena Jankovic (Serbia) 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.
Men’s doubles:
Semi-finals: 2-Daniel Nestor/Nenad Zimonjic (Canada/Serbia) bt Igor Kunitsyn/Dmitry Tursunov (Russia) 4-6, 6-4, 6-4; Pablo Cuevas/Luis Horna (Uruguay/Peru) bt Bruno Soares/Dusan Vemic (Brazil/Serbia) 6-4, 6-7(6), 7-6(6).
Mixed doubles:
Semi-final (WO denotes walkover): 1-Katarina Srebotnik/Nenad Zimonjic (Slovenia/Serbia) bt Zheng Jie/Mahesh Bhupathi (China/India) WO.—Agencies