Jankovic on a roll at Indian Wells

Indian Wells, California:

Jelena Jankovic rallied from a 2-4 second-set deficit to beat Alisa Kleybanova 6-4, 6-4 and reach the semifinals of the BNP Paribas Open.

Jankovic won the final four games of Thursday's match, twice breaking Kleybanova, to extend her best showing of the year. Jankovic made the semifinals at Indian Wells in 2008, and went on to finish the year ranked No. 1 in the world.

"I haven't been playing well," she said. "So it's nice to get that feeling back and to be winning again and be in the end of the tournament again."

At the start of the two-week event, the locker room was so crowded Jankovic could barely set her racket bag down. She arrived Thursday and found plenty of room.

"I like that feeling," she said. "I want to be at the end of the tournament where there's no one and there's only a couple of us standing. That means I'm doing well."

Defending men's champion Rafael Nadal was to play Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic in a night match. Nadal has beaten Berdych five consecutive times.

Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia defeated Juan Monaco of Argentina 4-6, 6-2, 6-1, setting up a semifinal against either third-seeded Nadal or No. 19 Berdych.

Ljubicic had his serve broken just once _ in the first set _ and won eight of the final nine games, helped by 11 aces.

After playing three consecutive night matches, Jankovic faced much different conditions during the day, with the sun in her eyes and the temperature in the upper 80s.

Kleybanova was within a point of taking a 5-2 lead on her serve in the second when the Russian double-faulted twice in a row and got broken.

Then Jankovic held at 4-4 and owned the momentum the rest of the way.

"Against Kleybanova it's really not easy to play your game because she plays those really flat shots and you never know where she's gonna hit it," Jankovic said. "It can throw you back at times."