Experienced Frenchman Arnaud Clement and British teenager Andy Murray roared into the Legg Mason Classic final with straight-sets victories in Washington on Saturday.
Clement needed two hours to outduel former world number one Marat Safin 7-6, 7-6, while Murray eased past Russian Dmitry Tursunov 6-2, 7-5 to reach his second final of the year.
The 11th-seeded Clement traded crisp groundstrokes with the power-hitting Safin, each player losing his service only twice in the match. Safin opened the door for the Frenchman by getting only 58 percent of his first serves in.
A costly double-fault by Safin in the first-set tiebreak gave Clement a 6-5 lead. Clement won the set on the next point when the Russian punched a forehand volley into the net.
"I had a couple of double faults at important moments," said Safin, who served nine aces but five double faults. "I haven't been in the semi-finals in a long time. I got nervous."
The 28-year-old Clement, ranked 57th and searching for his fourth career title, won the second-set tiebreak 7-4, securing a mini-break to take a 5-4 lead before serving out the match.
Safin, ranked 92 in the world and unseeded in Washington, had leads of 3-1 in the first set and 4-2 in the second before Clement battled back.
"This kind of match was disappointing," Safin told reporters. "It just slipped away. I had my chances."
Murray, seeded eighth in his first week playing under new coach Brad Gilbert, won five straight games to turn a 1-0 deficit in the first set into a 5-1 advantage.
In the second set, Tursunov had the 19-year-old Scot down 5-2 but the Russian did not win another game. Murray broke seventh seeded Tursunov in the 11th game to take a 6-5 lead and closed out the 84-minute match.
Murray had his serve broken only once despite blasting only one ace and getting just 45 percent of his first serves in.
"It's not a huge problem on these courts because my second serve is good enough not to be attacked," said Murray, who won a tournament in San Jose in February.
"In my first match I served 13 aces, and in my last three I've served only five total."
Murray and Clement have met only once before, a five-setter won by Clement at last year's US Open.
"He doesn't do anything spectacular but he doesn't do anything badly," Murray said of Clement. "I think all of his shots are very good. So it's going to be a tough match."
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