NEW YORK (AP) -- All Venus Williams could do at the end was shake her head in disbelief.

Two points from defeat, Williams summoned her fading strength to win four straight games Friday, take out Martina Hingis in an exquisite match and reach the U.S. Open final against Lindsay Davenport.

Williams ran her winning streak to 25 matches with a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 victory that showed off all the athletic skills and heart that brought her the Wimbledon title two months ago.

Davenport, a 6-2, 7-6 (5) victor over 18-year-old Russian Elena Dementieva in the first semifinal, will be going for her second U.S. Open title when she plays Williams on Saturday in the first all-American women's final since Chris Evert beat Martina Navratilova in 1984.

The last final between American-born women was 21 years ago, when Tracy Austin beat Evert.

Williams and Hingis put on one of the greatest duels in U.S. Open history, each of them playing close to the lines, lunging for shots that seemed out of reach, hitting winners from impossible angles, and keeping up the pressure on each other all the way.

Williams had her lapses, most glaringly when she double-faulted for the third time to lose the first set.

But she turned the momentum and picked up the tempo while breaking Hingis for a 4-3 lead in the second set. On the fifth break point of that game, Williams caught up to a volley by Hingis and sent back a desperate lob. Hingis, waiting at the net, whacked an overhead long to give Williams the game.

That began a run of five straight games by Williams as they thrilled the crowd with spectacular rallies.

But Williams was paying a price for her effort. Her legs began to look rubbery, her shoulders were sagging, and she seemed on her way to defeat when she double-faulted again to fall behind 3-2 in the third set.

Hingis, who ran far less and controlled many of the points from the middle, was nevertheless tiring, too, even as she kept holding serve to take a 5-3 lead.

Williams' father, Richard, left his courtside seat for the last time as she fell behind 15-30 in the next game. The match, it appeared, was two points from the end, his daughter beaten.

But Williams produced one of her most brilliant shots of a brilliant match, taking an overhead by Hingis and pummeling a backhand pass down the line to end a long, thrilling rally.

Hingis, now, was the one who sagged, and Williams broke her to 5-5 with another backhand winner that Hingis couldn't get near.

Williams began the next game with an ace and won it at love for a 6-5 lead that put all the pressure on Hingis. That pressure, and Williams' resurgence, proved too much. On the second match point, at 30-40, Hingis dumped a forehand into the net to give Williams the victory in 1 hour, 53 minutes.

Williams leaped a little, but didn't have the energy for a big celebration. Instead, she kept shaking her head at winning a match that she thought had gotten away.

``I shouldn't be giving things away, it's like giving away free money,'' Williams said of her 47 unforced errors -- 24 more than Hingis had.

But Williams also could take satisfaction in the aggressive way she played, producing 51 winners compared with Hingis' 13.

``She's already won the U.S. Open, maybe it was my turn,'' Williams said.

For most of the two sets, Davenport breezed along without a care, taking a 4-0 lead at the start while Dementieva played nervously, and benefitting from close line calls that repeatedly went against the Russian.

Davenport looked twice Dementieva's size, and hit balls twice as hard, twice as deep and twice as accurately.

But that didn't account for Dementieva's grit in the crunch. She saved three set points at 5-1 in the first set, and that was only a prelude to the fight she would show in the second set.

Davenport, serving for the match, held a 5-2, 40-love lead, and the fans were ready to rise to applaud her victory when Dementieva began her stunning resistance.

She flicked a gutsy forehand drop shot that Davenport chased down but netted. Then Dementieva slugged an overhead that Davenport lunged toward but couldn't handle. Davenport wasted a third match point with a forehand long and, two points later, a fourth with a backhand wide. After a crisp forehand winner by Dementieva, Davenport weakly double-faulted for her first break of service.

Dementieva drew strength from that stand, and held easily to make it 5-4.

Davenport again needed only to hold serve to put the match away, and she seemed on her way to doing that when she served aces on the first two points. But once again Dementieva stood firm, pushing Davenport to three break points before ending it with a spectacular running forehand into the corner.

After Dementieva held once more to win her fourth straight game and take a 6-5 lead, Davenport ambled very slowly to the chair and flipped her racket in disgust toward her chair.

When she came back on court, Davenport quickly hit three service winners before holding at love, then raised her arms as if to say, ``Finally.''

But Dementieva refused to fold easily in the tiebreaker. She double-faulted to give Davenport a 3-2 lead, but got that minibreak right back with a sharp return that Davenport netted.

They went toe-to-toe after that, until Davenport at last won on her fifth break point at 6-5 on Dementieva's serve. Out of position, Davenport lunged to make a defensive backhand lob that landed smack on the baseline. Dementieva ran back to chase it down, but mis-hit the ball and sprayed it wide. A match that appeared to be over after just 55 minutes when Davenport had her first match point, finally ended after one hour and 21 minutes.

Dementieva had beaten two seeded players, No. 7 Conchita Martinez and No. 10 Anke Huber, and her performance against Davenport showed that those victories were no fluke.