World No. 39 Feliciano Lopez is just one win away from ending a five-and-a-half-year title drought after defeating top seed Gael Monfils 3-6, 6-1, 7-6(1) Saturday in the semi-finals of the SA Tennis Open, an ATP World Tour 250 tennis tournament in Johannesburg.

The 28-year-old Lopez is bidding to win his first ATP World Tour title since lifting his only trophy at the Bank Austria TennisTrophy (d. Canas) in Vienna in October 2004. The Spaniard has since finished runner-up in three ATP World Tour finals, most recently at the 2008 Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships (l. to Roddick), and has a 1-4 record.

“I’m very happy to be in the final now. It’s always good, but since 2008 I haven’t reached a final so I am even happier,” said Lopez.

The third-seeded Lopez, who impressed in a third-round defeat to Andy Roddick at the Australian Open, rallied from dropping the first set to Monfils by breaking serve twice in the second set to level the match. With Monfils struggling with a left-knee injury, Lopez went on to race away with the decisive third-set tie-break to secure victory after one hour and 32 minutes.

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“I realised after the first break in the second set that he was injured because he was not running during the points and he was trying to change the game plan by coming to the net,” said Lopez. “I just had to think about my game and try to play my best and forget about if the other guy is injured or not.”

World No. 13 Gael Monfils slipped to an 8-3 mark on the season after suffering his second semi-final defeat (l. to Stepanek in Brisbane). The Frenchman was bidding to reach his first ATP World Tour final since finishing runner-up to Novak Djokovic at the BNP Paribas Masters in Paris (Bercy) at the close of the 2009 season.

DEUCE: The Natural

In the final Lopez will face World No. 100 Stephane Robert, who continued his dream run by ousting No. 2 seed David Ferrer 7-5, 6-4 to reach his first ATP World Tour-level title match. 

“It’s true that when you don’t know an opponent you can sometimes get surprised,” conceded Lopez, who will face Robert for the first time. “But he has already won four matches, he’s going to be in shape, so it’s going to be difficult for me. I just want to think about my game and play my very best, like I did today.”

The 29-year-old Robert, who is at a career-high placing in the South African Airways 2010 ATP Rankings after second-round efforts at the Aircel Chennai Open (l. to Berrer) and the Australian Open (l. to Montanes), had won just one ATP World Tour match in his career before the 2010 season. The Frenchman now has a 6-2 match record this year.

“For sure it is a big success and I don’t know if I realise what I’ve done today because there is a big gap between him and me in the ranking positions,” said Robert. “But today, on the court, I won two sets so I think I played a very good match, was very aggressive, and it was a big win for me today.”

Eighth seed Robert relinquished an early break advantage in the first set before clinching a one-set lead by breaking his Spanish opponent’s serve once more in the 11th game before serving out the set. The right-hander capitalised on his momentum as he raced to a 5-2 double-break lead in the second set and, while Ferrer was able to recover one of the breaks, the Spaniard could not complete the fight back and Robert sealed victory after one hour and 36 minutes.

The No. 18-ranked Ferrer fell in the Johannesburg semi-finals for the second year in a row, having lost out to another Frenchman, Jeremy Chardy, last year. The 27 year old dropped to a 4-3 mark on the season.  

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