Serb Ana Ivanovic needed only one hour and five minutes to see off the second seed Maria Sharapova before advancing into the final at the French Open on Thursday.

The Russian only managed to hold serve twice as the seventh seed Ivanovic created five break point chances and converted on all of them to beat the injury-plagued Sharapova 6-2, 6-1, with both of them appearing in their first semifinal in Paris.

"I played a great match and didn't miss much. I was expecting a tough match but I took my opportunities. I knew I had to be aggressive because if you give her chances she will take them." said Ivanovic.

"I didn't make many unforced errors and I served really well," added the Serb, who improved to 2-1 against the Russian.

"Maria likes to dominate but I knew she's not a great mover so I tried to play the ball deep and put her under pressure. She went for the big shots but I was there.

"Now I will look forward to the final, it's my first in a GrandSlam and I'm very excited about it."

Ivanovic will next play twice defending champion Justine Henin in the final.

Ivanovic broke Sharapova in her first service game with a sizzling forehand winner and was taking 5-1 lead when the Russian made a double fault in the opener.

Sharapova rallied to break back to pull within 2-5 but it was a brief respite from the onslaught as Ivanovic once again broke the Russian's serve in the eighth game to claim the set.

The first set statistics made grim reading for the former world number one and reigning U.S. Open champion with 16 unforced errors, twice as many as the tidy Serbian teenager.

Ivanovic served a love game to take the first game of the second set and then played the best game of the contest with her all-out attack exposing Sharapova's clay court uncertainty as she broke to go up 2-0.

Sharapova was hitting a series of unforced errors especially on her forehand and that again left her in a hole as she quickly went 4-0 down after another break.

After that, the result was never in doubt. Sharapova just couldn't find the way out.

With troublesome shoulder and hamstring injuries Sharapova participated in only one warm-up event prior to Roland Garros and despite making a slow start to the tournament the world No. 2 has got better and better as she has progressed through the draw.

However, Sharapova admitted that she had been outplayed in the semifinal.

"I felt like I gave her the chances to open up the court and she was always the one getting to the ball first," said the Russian.

"I would have liked my serve to be more effective but giving her the first ball wasn't a great game plan. There were a lot of sloppy errors and I just couldn't find any rhythm."

The 19-year-old Serbian has performed well at Roland Garros in the past, making it all the way to the quarterfinals two years ago, before eventually falling to Nadia Petrova of Russia in straight sets.

On Tuesday Ivanovic met another Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova and despite a second set slip, the Serbian star triumphed in three seesaw sets to reach the semifinals.

(Xinhua News Agency June 8, 2007)