NEW HAVEN, Conn. -- Top-seeded Lindsay Davenport, coming off a day's rest, beat Magui Serna 6-0, 7-5 Thursday night to advance to the semifinals of the hardcourt Pilot Pen tournament.

Scoring on baseline winners and crisp passing shots, Davenport held Serna to just five points in the 16-minute first set. She never lost serve, but had a little more resistance from the Spaniard in the second set, finally breaking her to go up 6-5.

"It helps when you haven't been broken the whole match," Davenport said. "I really didn't feel that much pressure on her return. A lot of times she was just floating the returns back. It was more pressure to get that break."

Davenport held serve for the match, finishing off Serna with a powerful forehand winner.

Ranked fourth in the world, Davenport has made it to the finals of the Pilot Pen three of the last four years, losing each time to Venus Williams. Williams, the four-time champion at New Haven, skipped the tournament this week because of an abdominal strain.

She takes on unseeded Elena Dementieva in Friday's semifinals and leads their head-to-head series 6-3. The Russian won the last meeting in three sets in April in the final at Amelia Island. Davenport anticipates a baseline battle as she continues to tuneup for next week's U.S. Open.

"This is exactly the kind of tennis I need to play," Davenport said. "She's a great baseliner, a lot of strong rallies. She's a very difficult opponent."

Dementieva advanced to the semifinals with a 6-1, 6-1 victory over qualifier Cara Black.

The other semifinal has second-seeded Amelie Mauresmo facing No. 3 Jennifer Capriati.

Mauresmo beat eighth-seeded Ai Sugiyama 6-4, 6-4, while Capriati advanced with 6-2, 5-7, 6-1 victory over Anna Pistolesi, snapping the longest win streak on the WTA Tour.

Pistolesi won her last 12 matches and was coming off clay court titles in Poland and Finland.

It was a breakthrough win for Mauresmo at New Haven. She had never made it past the quarterfinals in four previous tries.

Down 4-1 in the second set, Mauresmo broke Sugiyama with relentless groundstrokes and a solid service game. Sugiyama was unable to hold serve the rest of the way and Mauresmo closed out the match with a hard, slicing, 99 mph ace.

"She started to dictate the game a little bit more in the second set," Mauresmo said. "I really tried to turn it around and make sure I hit every shot and to be aggressive."

With the victory over Pistolesi, Capriati wrapped up consecutive three-set wins with the shortest turnaround of the tournament.

She beat Elena Bovina on Wednesday night in a slugfest that lasted more than two hours. She came back Thursday to finish off Pistolesi in a two-hour match played in hot, humid conditions that didn't seem to bother the Floridian, who is looking for her first win since the 2002 Australian Open.

"Just no shade out there at all, so it's kind of like you're out there and the sun's constantly beating on you," Capriati said. "But that's like Florida. I should be used to it."

Pistolesi took advantage of Capriati's unforced errors to pull even at one set apiece.

But the diminutive Israeli ran out of gas in the second game of the third set -- an 11-minute battle where Capriati withstood two break points.

"I had some chances, but she played really, really well on those points," Pistolesi said. "It was really tough to lose that game. It took a lot of energy from me."