DOHA, Qatar — Vera Zvonareva gained the final of the Sony Ericsson Championships on today, defeating Olympic gold medalist Elena Dementieva 7-6 (7), 3-6, 6-3 at the WTA's season-ending event.

She will play the winner of Saturday's second semifinal between Venus Williams and top-ranked Jelena Jankovic.

The ninth-ranked Zvonareva, the lowest-ranked player in the eight-woman field, improved to 2-4 against the Dementieva. The world No. 5 beat Zvonareva the last time the Russians played, in Beijing, where Zvonareva won bronze.

"I knew I had to start to play good every single match," Zvonareva said. "I didn't have any expectations."

Zvonareva frustrated Dementieva with solid groundstrokes in the final set and capitalized on a string of errors by Dementieva to win the last game at love.

Zvonareva recovered from a 1-4 deficit in the first set. In the tiebreaker, Dementieva rallied from 5-1 down and lost a set point before hitting a backhand wide on Zvonareva's second set point. The Russians broke each other four times in the first set.

Dementieva also had a 4-1 lead in the second set, and this time held onto it to even the match. She said Zvonareva was a dangerous player.

"You have to put pressure all the time," Dementieva said.

The tournament featured eight players divided into two groups, with the top two in each group advancing to the elimination stage.