KEY POINTS:
New Zealand women's No 1 Marina Erakovic will play her first WTA doubles final after winning her semifinal at the US$200,000 ($258,364) Tier III event in Istanbul.
After beating the top seeds in the first round, Erakovic, 20, and her Slovenian partner, Polona Hercog, were level with Russian fourth seeds Anastasia and Arina Rodionova 4-6 6-2 before beating their opponents 10-0 in the super tiebreak.
In this morning's final, Erakovic and Hercog were to play the third-seeded pair of American Jill Craybas and Olga Govortsova from Belarus. Victory will lift Erakovic's doubles ranking from 159 to around 100.
The tournament in Turkey has been a good build-up for the French Open which starts tonight, despite the fact she was knocked out in the first round of the singles earlier in the week.
Erakovic, who is ranked 78 in the world, will face veteran and 56th-ranked Italian Tathiana Garbin in the first round at Roland Garros.
Roger Federer's bid to win a first French Open will face a testing start after he was drawn to face big American Sam Querrey in the first round.
But the Swiss world No 1 does have the comfort of avoiding Novak Djokovic, the best player in the world this year, until a possible final clash.
The Serbian world No 3, who took Federer's Australian Open title in January, was placed in the same half of the draw as triple champion Rafael Nadal.
Spaniard Nadal is bidding to become the first player since Bjorn Borg in 1981 to win four titles in a row.
Nadal, who has a perfect record at Roland Garros of 21 wins from 21 matches, begins his campaign against a qualifier with a possible tricky quarter-final against David Nalbandian in store. Nadal has lost both his meetings with the Argentinian.
Djokovic, meanwhile, begins his campaign against Germany's Denis Gremelmayr.
Despite avoiding Djokovic, Federer will still have a tough road to a possible final. Bidding to become the sixth player to complete a career grand slam, Federer will face the 20-year-old Querrey, who is riding high after capturing his maiden career title in Las Vegas this year.
Federer remains confident he can get past Querry and overcome Nadal, who has beaten him in the final for the past two years: "I know I can beat him. I'm the one playing aggressive. I'm the one trying hard. I'm the one taking the risks in those matches, so I think I have positive chances of winning here.
"Two years ago, I was more pessimistic because I saw that Rafa was completely dominating the game on clay. But now I think I'm really close and I believe I have the good tactics."
Women's top seed Maria Sharapova, bidding to complete her own career grand slam, begins her campaign against fellow Russian and world No 104 Evgeniya Rodina. Second seed Serbian Ana Ivanovic, runner-up to Justine Henin in 2007, faces Sweden's Sofia Andersson, while 2002 champion Serena Williams starts against fellow American Ashley Harkelroad.
