Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russia reached the French Open semi-finals with a 7-5, 6-2 win over Kaia Kanepi of Estonia.
It was a tougher match than expected for Kuznetsova though as rank outsider Kanepi had her back-pedalling in the first set with the weight of her groundstrokes.
The fourth seed will play the winner of the all-Russian clash between Dinara Safina and Elena Dementieva for a place in the final.
The last, and only time, the two had met was in the junior girls final here in 2001 when the Estonian won on her way to taking the world number one junior ranking.
They went different ways after that, Kuznetsova basing herself in Spain to further her career, while Kanepi elected to stay at home.
The Russian went on to win the US Open title in 2004 and was runner-up in Paris last year as well as rising to second in the world.
Kanepi struggled to make the switchover to the seniors and she has yet to win a WTA Tour level title.
She was the first to threaten though breaking serve in the sixth game when Kuznetsova netted a forehand drive.
But the Russian bit back immediately to level the scores and then broke serve for a second time to lead 6-5. A confident service game to love followed as Kuznetsova went one set up in 54 minutes.
That visibly settled the Russian, who had sped into the last eight for the loss of just 19 games, the fewest by any player apart from second seed Ana Ivanovic.
She grabbed early breaks in the third and fifth games of the second set and that appeared to deflate Kanepi, the first Estonian to play in a Grand Slam quarter-final.
Kuznetsova was fully in command and she raced away to reach her fourth Grand Slam semi-final.
