Top-seeded Novak Djokovic advanced to the Rogers Cup final with a 6-4, 6-1 win over fellow Serb Janko Tipsarevic on Saturday night in the rain-delayed tournament.
Djokovic, the winner of the hard court event in 2007 and 2011, is scheduled to face Richard Gasquet in the final. The Frenchman, seeded 14th, beat John Isner 7-6 (3), 6-3.
Djokovic led 3-2 in the first set with the fifth-seeded Tipsarevic serving on 30-30 when play was stopped because of rain. The delay lasted an hour in the match that was delayed 90 minutes at the start.
Photo: Reuters
“I don’t see any reason why hard court tournaments don’t have covers on their courts,” Djokovic said. “And I think this tournament, after this years’ experience, should strongly consider covers for next year. If they inflate the covers, like they do at Wimbledon, for example, it saves us time.”
Gasquet, ranked 21st in the world, is making his first trip to a Masters 1000 final in six years. In 2006, also in Toronto, Gasquet lost to Roger Federer.
In the women’s event at Montreal, seventh-seeded Carolina Wozniacki ended Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak’s run, beating the Quebec favorite 6-4, 6-4 in the quarter-finals.
Wozniak, from the Montreal suburb of Blainville, was the first Canadian since Patricia Hy-Boulais in 1992 to reach the quarter-finals in the event.
The two players have met nine times and Wozniak’s only win was in Tokyo in 2009.
Earlier on Saturday, Wozniak finished off a rain-delayed match by topping Christina McHale 7-6, 6-3. Wozniacki playing the full match on Saturday, beating Varvara Lepchenko 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the afternoon.
In the semi-finals, Wozniacki is set to face the fifth-seeded Petra Kvitova, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Tamira Paszek.
In the other quarter-finals, 10th-seeded Li Na beat second-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-1, and 16th-seeded Lucie Safarova topped Roberta Vinci 6-2, 6-2.
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