Top seed Ivan Ljubicic was forced to resort to his strong serve to bail himself out of trouble against Belgium's Kristof Vliegen and enter the final in his maiden Chennai Open appearance on Sunday.
The semi-final, which was postponed due to rain on Saturday night, lasted more than two hours before Ljubicic got through, winning 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (6).
In the final, Ljubicic will play Spain's Carlos Moya, who is in line for a hat-trick of titles in Chennai. Moya had beaten Radek Stepanek in a thrilling first semi-final late Saturday night.
The match resumed on Sunday with the Croat leading 3-1 in the first set and it looked like a comfortable outing for the top seed.
But Vliegen, after losing the first set 3-6, reversed the score line in the second after breaking Ljubicic in the fourth game. Though he only had a big forehand to hurt the top seed, Vliegen played smart tennis to set Ljubicic off the track.
It was a patchy performance from the Croat, who dug himself out at crucial points with his serve, the fastest of which clocked 224 kmph. He slammed 12 aces in the third set for some easy points, while Vliegen did most of the hard work.
The Belgian, who had thrashed Paradorn Srichaphan 6-1, 6-2 to enter the semi-final, won the first point on Ljubicic's serve in the third set tie-break to take a 1-0 lead. He sustained the lead till 5-4 but a bad line-call on his first serve seemed to have upset the 23-year-old.
The experienced Ljubicic jumped on the opportunity to break him for 5-5 and then hit two service winners. He took the tie-break at 8-6 when Vliegen's backhand slice sailed long.
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