Tennis-Clijsters ignores injured ankle to beat Wozniacki

* Clijsters overpowers Wozniacki to make semi-finals

* Belgian will deal with bad ankle later (recasts, adds quotes)

Champion Kim Clijsters again showed her mental toughness as she ended Caroline Wozniacki's Australian Open title hopes and her hold on the world's top ranking on Tuesday.

Clijsters, who badly twisted her ankle in the fourth round against China's Li Na before she fought back from a set down and saved four match points, ignored any pain she may be feeling on Tuesday to beat the 21-year-old Wozniacki 6-3 7-6. She will take on third seed Victoria Azarenka of Belarus in the semi-finals.

The 28-year-old Belgian opted against getting the ankle scanned after the Li match, preferring to rely on treatment, painkillers and accepting the consequences of her decision.

"No, I refused," Clijsters said when asked if she had the ankle scanned. "I said 'no more. Whatever it is, it is. I'm going to try to make the best out of it and then we'll see when I get home how I'm feeling'.

"The ligaments are definitely a little bit hurt (but) ... I have seen more hospitals these last six months than anything, so no more for me."

Clijsters said she had attempted "to not do crazy things" on her day off between her win over Li and her match with Wozniacki and had been tentative in her movement when practicing.

The most discomfort she felt was in her stomach with all of the painkillers she was taking, though few watching her match with Wozniacki would have noticed any difference as she took the world number one apart in the first set.

Clijsters also did not appear to be suffering from the heat with temperatures approaching 34 degrees Celsius as she scampered around court and was able to stretch when recovering shots out wide.

To her credit, Wozniacki had looked down and out at 5-2 in the second set but drew on all of her reserves to fight back and take it to a tiebreak.

The comeback, however, only served to delay the inevitable as the Belgian took the decider 7-4, sealing victory on her first match point with a forehand volley.

"I thought Kim started off really strong," Wozniacki said. "She put the pressure on me from the beginning.

"I made a few unforced errors then she ran away a bit in the first set. But I hung in there and I kept fighting and I did what I could, but today it wasn't enough."

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