Top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga defeated German qualifier Daniel Brands 6-2, 7-6 (4) on Saturday to set up a final against Juan Martin del Potro at the Erste Bank Open.
It will be the ninth-ranked Tsonga’s fourth final of the season and first since winning in Metz last month. The Frenchman has won six career titles.
Earlier on Saturday, the second-seeded Del Potro defeated Kevin Anderson of South Africa 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to reach his third final of the year.
The 15th-ranked Del Potro is chasing his third title of the season and 10th overall. He last reached a final in Estoril, Portugal in April.
Tsonga raced into a 4-0 lead against the 182nd-ranked Brands, who struggled at the start of his second career semi-final.
Tsonga missed five chances to break Brands in the second set before wrapping up the win with an ace on his first match point in the tiebreaker.
Brands’ defeat meant that Julien Benneteau of France remained the only qualifier this year to reach an ATP final.
Del Potro dropped just two points on serve in the opening set and used the only break chance against Anderson, who won his first ATP title in his native Johannesburg in February.
The Argentine was less dominant in the second set when the sixth-seeded Anderson fought his way back into the match.
Del Potro did not allow any break points in the final set and closed out the victory on his second match point on Anderson’s serve.
ST PETERSBURG OPEN
AP, ST PETERSBURG, RUSSIA
Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia and Marin Cilic of Croatia advanced to the final of the St Petersburg Open with straight-sets victories on Saturday.
Tipsarevic beat Alex Bogomolov Jr 6-2, 6-1 to reach his second final in as many weeks, and Cilic ousted 2004 champion and last season’s runner-up Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-4 in the semi-finals.
Cilic won four consecutive games in the first set for a 5-1 lead and broke Youzhny decisively in the ninth game of the second. He closed it out with a drop shot on his first match point.
The fourth-seeded Cilic will be playing in his fourth final this season. Cilic is 5-1 against Tipsarevic, who won last time in Miami in March.
The second-seeded Tipsarevic won eight straight games to close out the first set and take a 5-0 lead in the second. On Oct. 23, he won his second career title at the Kremlin Cup. His first title came in Kuala Lumpur last month.
“Even though by the scoreline the match looked pretty easy ... on the court it really didn’t feel easy,” Tipsarevic said. “I feel I was playing better from the base line, but the main difference today was that I was serving much better than him. I was winning one or two free points off my serve in every game, and he had to fight for every single point because he had no winners from the first shot.”
It was the second semi-final this season for Bogomolov, a Russian-born American who also made the final four in Los Angeles in June.
“I made a lot of mistakes, he made few,” Bogomolov said.
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