New York ? Serena Williams wound up and smacked a shot directly at Dinara Safina early in the second set of their U.S. Open semifinal. The ball hit Safina near her shoulder, ending the point, and she quickly turned her back to the net, muttering as she walked away, ignoring Williams’ attempts to apologize.

Not much later Friday, Williams tried again to say “Sorry,” except this time both players were standing up at the net after the American wrapped up a 6-3, 6-2 victory. Now Williams can take aim at a third championship at Flushing Meadows and ninth Grand Slam title overall.

It’s Williams’ first U.S. Open final since 2002, when she beat older sister Venus. This time, she dispatched Venus in the quarterfinals.

Williams got off to a shaky start against Safina, the younger sister of 2000 U.S. Open men’s champion Marat Safin. Broken in her first service game, Williams fell behind 2-0, but she won seven of the next eight games, eventually doing a much better job than Safina of dealing with wind that gusted at over 20 mph.

Safina wound up with 41 unforced errors, and she repeatedly rolled her eyes or shook her head or shouted at herself in English or Russian. A few points after being pelted by the ball, Safina hit her fifth double-fault of the match and yelled, “I hate the wind!”

In the final, the fourth-seeded Williams will face No. 2 Jelena Jankovic, who beat Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva, 6-4, 6-4. In addition to the silver trophy at stake, either Williams or Jankovic will earn the No. 1 spot in the rankings next week.

That final is scheduled for tonight, but forecasts calling for rain much of the day prompted tournament organizers to announce contingency plans that could include postponing the match until Sunday.

Also Friday, twins Mike and Bob Bryan won their second U.S. Open men’s doubles title and sixth Grand Slam championship overall, beating Leander Paes and Lukas Dlouhy, 7-6 (5), 7-6 (10).