Top Two Seeds To Contest Gstaad Final

The top two seeds will contest the final of the Crédit Agricole Suisse Open Gstaad on Sunday after both teams recorded straight-sets victories in Saturday’s semi-finals at the ATP World Tour 250 clay-court tennis tournament.

Top seeds Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek reached their third ATP World Tour final of the season as they dismissed Victor Hanescu and Rogier Wassen 6-4, 6-3 in 61 minutes. The Czech-Slovak tandem did not face a break point and converted two of their seven opportunities.

Cermak and Polasek won their first title on their team’s debut outing at the Serbia Open 2011 in Belgrade in April, defeating Austrians Oliver Marach and Alexander Peya in the final. Last week, they finished runners-up to the same duo in the Hamburg final.

The 34-year-old Cermak is a two-time former champion in Gstaad, winning the title in 2005 (w/ Friedl) and 2007 (w/ Vizner); he also reached the final in 2003 (w/ Friedl). The 26-year-old Polasek will contest his third final in three appearances in Gstaad. He and Jaroslav Levinsky won the title in 2008 and were runners-up in 2009.

Cermak and Polasek will come across Peya in an ATP World Tour final again as he and German partner Christopher Kas, the second seeds, needed just 57 minutes to defeat fourth seeds Johan Brunstrom and Adil Shamasdin 6-4, 6-1 with four breaks of serve.

Peya and Kas, semi-finalists at Wimbledon (l. to Lindstedt-Tecau), will contest their second ATP World Tour final of the season after finishing runners-up to Scott Lipsky and Rajeev Ram in Delray Beach in February.

No. 3 seeds Mark Knowles and Xavier Malisse advanced to the Farmers Classic final, rallying to beat Yen-Hsun Lu and Frank Moser 4-6, 6-4, 10-7.

The Bahamian-Belgian pair missed their first nine break point opportunities before converting their 10th, which came on set point in the second set. Knowles and Malisse never trailed in the match tie-break and clinched the semi-final encounter on their first match point.

Knowles will look to win his 54th title and first in Los Angeles on Sunday, while Malisse is bidding to claim his sixth overall and second in 2011, after triumphing at the BNP Paribas Open with Alexandr Dolgopolov (d. Federer/Wawrinka).

In the final, Knowles and Malisse will face Somdev Devvarman and Treat Conrad Huey, who topped fourth seeds Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram 7-6(6), 6-7(8), 10-4.

The Israeli tandem won two more points than their unseeded opponents but it was Devvarman and Huey who ran away with the match tie-break to claim victory in one hour and 55 minutes.

The win puts the former University of Virginia teammates into their first doubles final.