MOSCOW (AP) Samantha Stosur beat her doubles partner Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-2, 6-4 to line up Simona Halep of Romania in the Kremlin Cup final on Saturday.
Stosur will play for her second title in two weeks. Halep routed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 6-2, 6-1 to take a shot at her fifth title this year.
In the men's semifinals, top-seeded Richard Gasquet defeated Ivo Karlovic of Croatia 7-4, 7-5, while qualifier Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan upset defending champion Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-1, 1-6, 6-4.
Kuznetsova couldn't hold serve once in the first set, winning just six of 23 points when serving, while Stosur was broken twice as well. Stosur took a 5-1 lead in the second but then failed to serve out the match twice.
"At the start we were both struggling to hold serve and she had love-40 again on me and my second service again and I was able to get out of that," Stosur said. "And I think that gave me a little bit of a head up, and to win that first set 6-2 was good. It was still pretty tight all the way through."