Marcos Baghdatis and former Wimbledon finalist David Nalbandian will vie for the Washington Classic championship after winning their semifinals in straight sets on Saturday.
Baghdatis blended some timely serving with his tiebreak artistry to ease past Xavier Malisse 6-2 7-6, while Nalbandian, playing in his first tournament since April, routed fourth seed Marin Cilic 6-2 6-2 in 73 minutes.
Sunday’s championship will mark the first final in the United States for both players, with eighth seed Baghdatis holding a 3-1 edge against the unseeded Nalbandian.
“He’s a good player,” Argentine Nalbandian said of Baghdatis. “We know each other. We have a pretty similar game from the baseline. I have to keep believing in my game.
“I’m playing very good right now.”
Croat Cilic broke Nalbandian’s serve to open the match but started spraying his shots and dropped the first set before many of the fans were able to find their seats.
Nalbandian, a 2002 finalist at the All England Club who has been sidelined for much of the year with a hamstring injury, converted five of eight break-points to defeat Cilic for the second time in two meetings.
The difference was Nalbandian’s brilliant return of serve, according to Cilic.
“I could count on my hand the number of returns he missed from the backhand side,” he said. “He was really, really good. Consistent. He was putting a lot of pressure on me.”
“I couldn’t get any free points.”
The 25th-ranked Baghdatis landed only 43 percent of his first serves on a humid day in Washington but was broken only once and rated his performance the “perfect game” to beat Malisse.
“It was a tough one but I played really, really smart,” the Cypriot said. “I played the right shot at the right time.
Malisse was error-prone in the opening set, especially from the backhand side, but the 30-year-old Belgian found his stride in the second with his booming forehand.
“When you lose 6-2 you basically have nothing to lose and you go for your shots a little more,” said Malisse, ranked 62nd and unseeded in Washington. “Once they start going in, your confidence starts going up.”
Baghdatis broke Malisse in the 11th game to take a 6-5 lead but the Belgian broke back to force a tiebreak.
Unbowed, the Cypriot raced to a 6-1 lead to take the tiebreak 7-4 and raise his record in 6-6 deciders to an imposing 11-3 this year.
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