Williams, Dementieva reach final

Serena Williams survived a scare from France's Aravane Rezai yesterday before booking her spot in the Sydney International final against Russian Elena Dementieva.

The Australian Open champion was teetering on the brink of defeat after losing the first set and trailing 5-2 in the second but she raised her game to win 3-6 7-5 6-4.

"I was lucky to get through today," American Williams told reporters. "I'm just super mentally tough, I feel like that's definitely one of my strengths."

While Williams had to dig deep, Dementieva had no real problems winning her semi-final against Victoria Azarenka of Belarus.

Dementieva cruised to a 6-3 6-1 victory at the Olympic tennis centre to remain on course to defend her title.

"I was trying to be very aggressive from the beginning of the match," Dementieva said.

"I didn't want it to go three sets, because I need to save some energy for the final."

France were at least assured of a place in the men's final after Richard Gasquet and Julien Benneteau won their last-eight matches.

Gasquet, who resumed playing this month after being cleared over a positive cocaine test, defeated Italy's Potito Starace 6-3 7-6 and Benneteau beat Leonardo Mayer of Argentina 6-4 6-7 6-0.

Former Australian Open finalist Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus also reached the semi-finals by beating Australian Lleyton Hewitt 4-6 6-2 6-3.

He meets American Mardy Fish who overcame Australia's Peter Luczak 7-6 6-2.

Australian Open

Roger Federer and Serena Williams have been awarded the top seedings for the Australian Open, starting on Monday. The seedings were determined by the current world rankings, with one exception, ahead of today's official draw at Melbourne Park.

The only player ranked in the world's top 32 in the men's and women's listings to miss out on a seeding was Belgium's 2009 US Open semi-finalist Yanina Wickmayer.

Although she is currently ranked 16th, Wickmayer was not considered for the seedings because she did not enter the tournament when the deadline for registrations closed in November.