NEW YORK, Sept. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Kim Clijsters repeated her U.S. Open victory in the women's semifinals on Friday and beat top-seeded Maria Sharapova 6-2, 6-7 (4-7), 6-3.

    The 22-year-old Belgian, fourth-seeded here, will meet Mary Pierce of France, who came back to defeat Elena Dementieva of Russia 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the earlier semis, in Saturday's prime-time U.S. Open championship final.

    If Clijsters wins, as the U.S. Open Series winner over the summer, she will earn $2.2 million -- the biggest purse in women's sports history.

    More important to Clijsters, it would be her first Grand Slam singles title after appearances in four previous finals and 2004's debilitating wrist injury.

    The Belgian broke all four of Sharapova's service games and ranoff with the first set in a tidy 28 minutes. The second set was something altogether different.

    Sharapova, serving to stay in the match at 5-6, lost the first three points: a backhand that went wide, a forehand in the net and a double-fault that was characteristically hit too hard and sailed long. Somehow, she escaped.

    At love-40, she had the audacity to end a wearying 29-stroke rally with a drop shot, of all things. It was successful, and she dodged and weaved -- there were two aces that clipped lines and two double-faults, one off the tape -- her way into a tiebreaker.

    In the end, Sharapova's emphatic swinging forehand volley winner gave her the set and a fresh start.

    "I know that I didn't play bad points there," Clijsters said. "She had to come up with good shots, and she did. Obviously, it was a little frustrating. I was saying to myself, she came up withthose shots at the last minute. Let her do that again if she wants to beat me."

    Clijsters reacted by winning the first four games of the final set. This time, there was no comeback.

    Sharapova finished with 54 unforced errors, 19 more than her 35winners. Clijsters had a modest 24 winners, but had only 29 unforced errors.

    After left wrist surgery effectively ruined her 2004 season, Clijsters has been on a tear. Her match record is now 55-6, the best on the WTA Tour and she has won six titles, three of them coming on the hardcourts of the summer circuit. Her ranking, which dipped as low as No. 134 in March, will rise to No. 3 on Monday, regardless of Saturday's result.

    Clijsters came into this U.S. Open playing better than anyone on hardcourts, man or woman; her win streak is at 21, four behind Steffi Graf's single-season record of 25.

    A win over Pierce would probably be enough to make Clijsters the Comeback Player of the Year and Player of the Year. There will be four different Grand Slam champions this year -- Serena Williams, Justine Henin-Hardenne and Venus Williams won previously-- and Sharapova and Lindsay Davenport are the only ones who have played at anything approaching Clijsters' consistency. Enditem