CYPRIOT wild card Marcos Baghdatis and Serbia's third seed Janko Tipsarevic will face off in the men's singles final of the ATP Malaysian Open after both logged convincing victories at the Putra Stadium in Bukit Jalil yesterday.
Baghdatis avenged his loss to Serbia's Viktor Troicki in the final of the Kremlin Cup last October when he snapped a five-match losing streak against top-20 opponents in beating the second seed 6-3, 6-1 to qualify for his 11th career final.
In the other semi-final, Tipsarevic, the World No 17, broke three times to notch a comprehensive 6-4, 6-3 victory over Japan's World No 54 Kei Nishikori to reach his third final of the season.
The Serbian, who is playing confidently in Kuala Lumpur, will be gunning for his maiden career ATP-level title today.
Troicki was far from his best as he made too many unforced errors, which led him to be impatient throughout the match.
Two service breaks were exchanged before Baghdatis broke in the eighth game to win the first set. The 26-year-old then broke his World No 15 rival three times in the second set to race to victory in 84 minutes.
Baghdatis, whose ranking tumbled to World No 60 after a mediocre season, will be making his first appearance in a tour final since last year's Kremlin Cup. The Cypriot has won five career titles with his last success in Sydney last January.
"It was a very weird first set as both of us had problems with our serving but I stayed calm and won the important points. I concentrated on my serve in the second set and broke him three times," said Baghdatis, who was once World No 8.
"I think it was more of a mental match and my mental side won it as I kept pushing and pushing myself throughout the match.
"I also kept Troicki off the rallies and made him move forward to the net to earn crucial points."
Nishikori could have become Japan's highest world ranked player if the 21-year-old had beaten Tipsarevic yesterday. He would have moved up to around No 42 or 43 if he had won.
However, Tipsarevic, a losing finalist in Eastbourne and Delray Beach this year, managed to get the better of his eighth seed opponent with his powerful serve and ground strokes.
Nishikori had break-point opportunities throughout the match including the decisive eighth game of the second set but could not convert.
Tipsarevic, however, does not want to put himself under pressure by thinking about winning the title today.
"Winning titles is overrated. I will just focus on the final as if it is just another first round match. Marcos (Baghdatis) is a very good player and if he is in good form, he will be difficult.
"It will be a very different Tipsarevic out there this time and so we will have to see what happens. I will have to play as well as today (yesterday) or even better to have a chance of winning tomorrow (today)," said the part-time DJ.
Baghdatis has beaten Tipsarevic twice in three meetings but the Serbian won the last encounter in Los Angeles last year.
