World no 1 Serena Williams edged past her elder sister Venus Williams 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 on Thursday evening to book her place in the Final of Sony Ericsson Open, Miami.

Serena got the break in the fourth game and looked set for a one set lead. However, Venus broke back for 5-4 but squandered her serve as Serena took the first set 6-4. In the second set, both the players exchanged early breaks till Venus held her serve at 3-2 and broke Serena again to level the match. After initial breaks of serve from both the players in the deciding set, Serena took the crucial lead of 5-3 in the set. Serena won the match as Venus backhand found the net in the middle on match point.

With this victory Serena equalled the head to head record against Venus at 10-10. Serena said "It's definitely good to even it up. I would love to be in the lead again". 

She added "I was also thinking I'd love to remain No.1, so obviously I'm really excited about that. I think I was more happy about that than winning the match at the end. I'm really happy to get over this one."

After the match, Venus said "It was a well-fought match. My serve wasn't going as well as I wanted but she brought a lot of balls back and played really tough. When I come to a tournament I come to win. So I'm disappointed right now. But I'm looking forward to working hard and doing better next time."

In the final, Serena  faces Belarusian  Victoria Azarenka, who battled past Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 2-6, 7-5  earlier in the day.

Azarenka who reached her first Premier final said, "It's really big, because it's first final in such a big tournament for me. It's the biggest moment, I would say, in my career."

"It feels great that all the work I been doing is paying off," said Azarenka. "I was just trying to play every point from the beginning to the end. Second set didn't go so well for me, but I was still hanging in there and just played every point no matter what."