Jelena Jankovic first into the BNP Paribas semifinals

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Jelena Jankovic, the sixth seed at the BNP Paribas Open, had said Thursday that she likes it at this point of a two-week tennis tournament. The locker room that was once crowded and noisy is now spacious and quiet.

It’s hard to imagine any locker room with Jankovic around that’s really quiet. The Serbian with the big but often erratic game is a chatterbox, and now she’s a first-time finalist here after a 6-2, 6-4 win over eighth-seeded Samantha Stosur of Australia. The bright side for Stosur is that she is projected to reach the top 10 for the first time in her career and become the first Australian woman to do so since Alicia Molik in 2005.

Jankovic will play the winner of Friday night’s other women’s semifinal, between second-seeded Caroline Wozniacki and fifth-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska, in Sunday’s final.

-- Diane Pucin