St. Petersburg (Russia), Oct 27: Third-seeded Sebastien Grosjean reached his first ATP final of the season yesterday, beating Karol Kucera of Slovakia 6-3, 6-2, in the semifinals of US$975,000 St. Petersburg Open.
Grosjean will meet home-crowd favourite Mikhail Youzhny, who eliminated wildcard entry Vladimir Voltchkov of Belarus 6-4, 6-3, in the other semifinal. Kucera, who beat top-seeded Andre Agassi in the second round here, came back from a break down twice in the opening set before Grosjean made a decisive break in game 6. The second set was a lopsided affair with the Frenchman, a Madrid Masters semifinalist last week, jumping to a 4-1 lead and comfortably winning. "I just couldn't catch up with Sebastien today," said Kucera.



Youzhny, who won his first ATP title in Stuttgart in July, took the lead with an early break in the opening set. Voltchkov, who hadn't drop a set here and knocked out two-time defending champion Marat Safin in the second round, broke back in the seventh game but lost his serve again in game 10.



The second set was postponed for 40 minutes because of roof leakage at the Peterburgsky Sports Complex in Russia's second largest city.



Voltchkov saved four breakpoints in the fourth game of the second set before Youzhny finally broke his opponent in game 8 to serve for the match.



Grosjean beat Youzhny in their first head-to-head meeting in the third round at Madrid.


Bureau Report