Williams is sent packing

CARLSBAD -- There was drama everywhere, fist pumps and tears, 126-mph serves, a barrel full of outsized forehands and line-hugging backhands littering the landscape.

There were two set points squandered by Anna Chakvetadze and a match point tossed away with a double fault by Venus Williams.

And when it mattered most Chakvetadze, a pony-tailed 20-year-old who wept when she double-faulted on break point and when she hit a villainous forehand passing shot to leave Williams flat-footed, dispatched the reigning Wimbledon champion, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (3), 6-2, Friday night at the Acura Classic.

The third-seeded Chakvetadze advanced into the semifinals against top-seeded Maria Sharapova, who beat unseeded Sania Mirza, 6-2, 6-1, in 61 minutes. Sharapova will certainly be better rested than Chakvetadze, who needed 2 hours 32 minutes to win and who didn’t leave the court until nearly 10 p.m.

“This is the biggest win in my career,” Chakvetadze said.

Williams, near tears herself after her third-set meltdown, said, “I don’t even know what to think right now. It bothers me because I thought I had a great chance to go with no losses this summer.”

In today’s other semifinal, ninth-seeded Elena Dementieva, who had considered retirement suffering three broken ribs during a training session last February, will play 11th-seeded Patty Schnyder of Switzerland. Dementieva beat fellow Russian Maria Kirilenko, 6-2, 6-4, while Schnyder, 28, upset fourth-seeded Nadia Petrova, 6-4, 6-4.

It took Williams 65 minutes to win the first set after Chakvetadze had two set points and twice served for the set. When it was over, after she had tossed in six double faults in her last three service games, Chakvetadze shook with emotion.

And when Williams, 27, won the first two games of the second set over the Chakvetadze, it seemed as if Williams was on her way to play Sharapova.

But Chakvetadze, who has won two consecutive tournaments since Wimbledon, gathered her nerves. She earned back the service break and when Williams gained match point she coughed up a double fault herself. In the second-set tiebreaker, Williams steered an easy forehand volley into the net.

“Every point I was running and fighting and that is why I would win,” Chakvetadze said.

After Dementieva’s Moscow-based trainer introduced her to resistance-training exercises last February, Dementieva found herself struggling to breathe at night. It took her arrival at Indian Wells and an X-ray to discover three broken ribs.

The injury caused Dementieva to consider quitting the sport. But she also couldn’t keep her eyes off tennis on TV. “I just can’t get away from the tour,” Dementieva said. “I like to play.”

So does Chakvetadze and good thing for that. “I’m tired,” she said. “But I’m already thinking about tomorrow.”

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diane.pucin@latimes.com