Dinara Safina woke up from a first-set snooze to keep alive her dreams of a maiden French Open title but fellow Russian Nikolay Davydenko's birthday celebrations turned into a nightmare today. World number one Safina soaked up the full force of Belarussian teenager Victoria Azarenka's armory to reach the semi-finals for the second year running with a see-saw 1-6 6-4 6-2 win. She will face Slovak Dominika Cibulkova next.

Swedish giant-killer Robin Soderling proved his win over four-times champion Rafael Nadal was no fluke as he handed 10th seed Davydenko a 6-1 6-3 6-1 walloping. Maria Sharapova, on a comeback trail from a nine-month injury layoff, was on the receiving end of an even more emphatic 6-0 6-2 rout from 20th seed Cibulkova.

Safina had dropped only five games in her first four matches but by the end of the 23-minute first set she had more than doubled that figure as ninth seed Azarenka gave her a taste of her own medicine with some devastating baseline power-play. "At the beginning it was going too fast, there was nothing I could do," said Safina, last year's runner-up. Faced with a tough, stubborn, courageous and racket-bashing mirror image of herself, Safina struggled to handle her 19-year-old rival until finally breaking for a 2-1 lead in the second set.

GOOD TEST

Within minutes Safina extended her lead to 4-1 and Azarenka's racket felt the full force of her anger as she hurled it to the ground in disgust after producing a double fault on break point. Venting her frustrations appeared to do the trick as Azarenka pegged Safina back to 4-4 but from then on the Russian kept her focus to wrap up the win, much to the delight of her vocal entourage. "It was a good test for me," said 23-year-old Safina. Apart from Safina's victory, though, it was a miserable day for the Russians.

Following Nadal's departure, Davydenko had been Roger Federer's pick to reach the final from the top half of the draw but Soderling has never been one to read the script. If the Russian had hoped to celebrate his 28th birthday by reaching his third Paris semi-final, he was clearly mistaken. He was never allowed to get into the match and after being teased and tormented for one hour 41 minutes, the Russian almost looked relieved when Soderling's fourth ace whizzed by to end his ordeal.

It was a sentiment shared by Sharapova. The former world number one's patched-up shoulder held up during four successive three setters but her run was finally ended by a rather amusing and petulant Cibulkova. Behaving like a child who had just had a bag of sweets taken away from her, a grimacing Cibulkova stamped her feet and swiped her racket against the ground as Sharapova hung on to save four match points. On the fifth, the 102nd-ranked Sharapova netted a forehand that sent Cibulkova into an aerial twirl before she fell flat on her back to celebrate her first grand slam semi-final appearance.

Program of the day

MEN:
Robin Soderling (SWE) (23) def. Nikolay Davydenko (RUS) (10)
6-1, 6-3, 6-1

Fernando González (CHI) (12) def. Andy Murray (GBR) (3)
6-3, 3-6, 6-0, 6-4

WOMEN:
Dinara Safina (RUS) (1) def. Victoria Azarenka (BLR) (9)
1-6, 6-4, 6-2

Dominika Cibulkova (SVK) (20) def. Maria Sharapova (RUS)
6-0, 6-2