Cilic and Tipsarevic breeze into St Petersburg final

Written by: Staff on 30th October 2011

Cilic and Tipsarevic breeze into St Petersburg final

Marin Cilic of Croatia returns the ball to Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia during their final match at the St. Petersburg Open ATP tennis tournament in St.Petersburg, Russia, 30 October 2011. EPA/ANATOLY MALTSEV |

Both finalists Marin Cilic and Janko Tipsarevic comfortably made their way into the final of the St Petersburg Open on Saturday.

Marin Cilic defeated hometown favourite Mikhail Youzhny 6-3 6-4. Cilic encountered some problems in the second set when he fell behind 3-0 but quickly turned the match around winning in straight sets. Cilic is looking for his first title this season. The Croat has been the runner up in Marseille, Umag and Beijing but has been unsuccessful so far in winning a title. Last year and in 2009 Cilic won the same two tournaments Chennai and Zagreb.

Janko Tipsarevic is having a great time on the ATP Tour this year. In the last couple of weeks the Serb has won the Malaysian Open and Kremlin Cup in Moscow. He has also been runner up in Delray Beach and Eastbourne. The World No. 13 crushed the No. 7 seed Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-2 6-1 to advance into the St Petersburg final.

Cilic and Tipsarevic have played each other six times. Cilic is ahead with 5 wins to 1. Their most recent meeting was in the ATP World Tour Masters in Miami who saw Tipsarevic as the winner in straight sets.

Russian wildcards Mikhail Elgin and Alexander Kudryavtsev fought hard to reach the doubles final with a win over Michael Kohlmann and Alexander Waske 6-7 (2) 7-5 11-9. The Russians will face British duo Colin Fleming and Ross Hutchins in the final.

The number three seed Hutchins and Fleming won over top seeds Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek in straight sets on Friday. Colin Fleming is the defending doubles Champion with Ken Skupski.

SCHEDULE – SUNDAY, 30 OCTOBER, 2011  CENTRE COURT start 1:45 pm

[3] C Fleming (GBR) / R Hutchins (GBR) vs [WC] M Elgin (RUS) / A Kudryavtsev (RUS)

Not Before 4:00 PM

[4] M Cilic (CRO) vs [2] J Tipsarevic (SRB)