Pune: South African Kevin Anderson carried on with his dominating performance as he outplayed France’s Benoit Paire in the second semi-final of the Tata Open Maharashtra to make it to the finals of the competition.
Anderson outplayed Paire 6-7, 7-6, 6-1 to set up a final clash against Gilles Simon who beat top seeded Marin Cilic to progress to the final to be played on Saturday.
The second semi-final was a battle of equals as both the players aim for domination and much rightly so, the first set headed to a tie-breaker where Paire held his nerve to edge past Anderson 7-6.
But Anderson came back hard and strong in the second set as he won 30 out of the 38 service points. But Paire gave him a tough fight as he then went on to win 16 out of 17 service points to take the second set to the tie-breaker as well. But this time, Anderson didn’t let this opportunity slip away as he held his nerve to claim the second set.
In the third set, the South African took a well-deserved 3-0 lead and then went on to hit seven aces to win the set and the match 6-1 and book a place in the final.
In the first semi-final, it was Gilles Simon, who against everyone’s expectations got the better of the two-time champions and top seeded Marin Cilic to proceed to the final. In the first set, Cilic raced away with a 5-0 lead and deservedly won 6-1. But world no. 89 made a strong comeback and led 4-0 and despite Cilic’s efforts in clawing back to make it 4-2, Simon won the second set 6-3.
In the third set, Simon dominated completely as he first got a 5-2 lead and then held his nerve, and then won it 6-3 to book a place in the final.