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Gonzalez, Robredo to meet at China Open finalhttp://sports.sina.com.cn 2007年09月15日22:18 Xinhua
BEIJING, Sept. 15 (Xinhua) -- Second seed Fernando Gonzalez will be playing third-seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo at the China Open men's singles final as they both progressed from respective semifinals here on Saturday. Gonzalez overcame a first set slump to rally past fourth-seeded Croat Ivan Ljubicic 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 in one hour 56 minutes and improved his record against Ljubicic to 4-4 lifetime. While Robredo, who came into the semifinal on a three-match roll without dropping a set, was pushed all the way by former world number four Nicolas Kiefer from Germany before a 7-6(5), 7-5victory. Coming back from the wrist injury which cost him a whole year, wild card Kiefer always had his game in control and made Robredo to work hard all through the match. At 4-all and 40-15 down in Kiefer's serve, the Spaniard powered some sizzling shots from the baseline reeling off the next four points to break the German. However, Kiefer broke back right away to square the match at 5-5 and finally held serve to force a tiebreak. Robredo gave a spectacular performance to force a string of errors from Kiefer going 6-1 up in the tiebreak, but needed the fifth set point to chalk up the opening set. The loss of the tiebreak seemed not to knock Kiefer's spirit, going on to cause trouble with powerful ground strokes and smashing, but in the end Robredo's greater resilience, consistency and fitness wore the 30-year-old down. On the contrary, Gonzalez had to fight hard against his opponent, who seemed totally in control in the opening set, producing two break point opportunities and making both happen efficiently to clinch the set in just 28 minutes. The masterful baseliner unleashed a barrage of powerful, angled groundstrokes, while Gonzalez, the China Open debutant, never found his rhythm at the beginning. The 27-year-old Gonzalez, however, regained the momentum from the second set. After an early exchange of breaks, the two leveled the scores at 3-all, but it was Gonzalez that pulled away first, overwhelming with an array of sizzling forehand shots before winning the set 6-3 with two breaks up. The two kept such a high standard that the deciding set was much tighter. Ljubicic should have had a chance of winning when he took a break in the seventh game, but the Chilean broke back right away to stay in contention. Gonzalez then went on to capture another break when the Croat netted a forehand return. "I lost many of my chances in the first set but I became more patient to grasp the remaining in the final set. Ljubicic is a great player so I'm very happy to keep winning at the China Open," said Gonzalez. "This year I just took part in 18 tournament because I need to recover my body. I hope China Open can help me reach my peak and I hope I can play much better. The most important thing for me is to play good tennis and try to win," he said.
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