Indian Wells (United States), March 20 (IANS): German Sabine Lisicki defeated defending champion Flavia Pennetta of Italy after saving three match points to reach the semi-finals of the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament.

"It was obviously a close match throughout the entire match," Lisicki said after the win on Thursday. The 24th seed ended the title defence of Pennetta 6-4, 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4) in two hours and 40 minutes here, reports Xinhua.

The two players, who had never met on the professional circuit before, started very well on serve conceding no break points until the eighth game when Lisicki went ahead.

Flavia then immediately broke back. At 5-4, Lisicki managed her third consecutive break to win the set 6-4 when Pennetta hit a forehand long.

The German had the chance to end the match in the second set, but the Italian saved a match point. After Lisicki saved a break point in the following game, the set went into a tie-break. Pennetta dominated the tie-break to claim a 7-3 success.

In a tense third set, Pennetta forged three match points of her own at 5-4 in the decider before Lisicki fought back to claim victory in a tie-breaker.

"We played really well the third set both, and was a good fight until the last point. Anything could have happened tonight," Pennetta said.

Lisicki had 44 winners in the match, but also 71 unforced errors. She also had five aces, the final coming to close out the match, which lasted nearly three hours.

Pennetta hit 23 winners but 43 unforced errors on Thursday. The 15th seed came into the match on the back of an upset win against second-ranked Maria Sharapova in the previous round.

"Tennis is like this," Pennetta said, "I'm happy about the match, but of course I am upset, because when you are there you want to win it."

Lisicki will meet Jelena Jankovic who defeated Ukraine's Lesia Tsurenko in the first women's semi-final before Serena Williams, the top seed, takes on Romania's Simona Halep.