Mason, OH (My Sportsbook) - Dinara Safina of Russia rolled into her eighth final of the 2009 season with a straight-set victory over Italy's Flavia Pennetta in the semifinals of the Western & Southern Financial Group Open.

The top-seeded Safina needed a mere 56 minutes to claim a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Pennetta, who entered the semis with a 15-match winning streak. It was her first loss since a semifinal setback to Caroline Wozniacki at the Swedish Open last month.

Safina will next meet the winner of Saturday night's semifinal between fellow Russian Elena Dementieva and Serbia's Jelena Jankovic.

The world's top-ranked player will try for her 13th career title on Sunday and is 3-4 in WTA Tour finals this year, with wins in Rome, Madrid and Portoroz. She is still searching for that elusive first Grand Slam crown, having lost in the title matches at the Australian and French Open. Her other two final setbacks came in Sydney and Stuttgart.

Pennetta, the 14th seed, was coming off consecutive titles in Palermo and Los Angeles. She had also knocked off Venus Williams in the third round of this tournament earlier this week.

On Saturday, however, she was no match for Safina, who broke serve six times and had her serve broken just once. She won 57 of the total 84 points played.

Safina won the first six points of the match and captured an early break of serve for a 2-0 lead. She went on to open a 5-1 edge and was serving for the set, but was unable to close it out in the seventh game.

A first serve called good for an ace appeared to give Safina the set, but a video review determined it was well wide and the Russian became unnerved. She committed two straight double-faults and missed another first serve before finally getting a second serve in. However, an unforced error gave Pennetta the game.

Safina, though, quickly regrouped and lost just one point in the next game to break serve and win the set. She continued that momentum in the second set and didn't drop another game en route to her seventh win without a loss over Pennetta.

This was the second meeting between the two this year. Safina rallied from a set down to earn a 3-6, 7-5, 6-0 win in the Stuttgart semifinals.

Safina owns a 3-2 lead in the series against Jankovic, while she has split 10 lifetime matches with her countrymate Dementieva. Safina and Jankovic have not met this year and the only previous title match between the two produced a 6-2, 6-2 Jankovic win at Charleston in 2007. Dementieva has won the last two matchups against Safina -- last year's Olympic final in China and this year's title match in Sydney.

Sunday's winner will collect a first prize of $350,000.