Djokovic, Gasquet to clash in Toronto final

TORONTO: Defending champion Novak Djokovic and Frenchman Richard Gasquet advanced to the final of the Toronto Masters after each secured routine victories under threatening skies on Saturday.
Top-seeded Djokovic, seeking his third title in the event in five years, booked his spot in Sunday’s title showdown with a 6-4, 6-1 win over fellow Serbian Janko Tipsarevic in a match that started two hours late because of rain.
Djokovic had moved 3-2 ahead in the opening set of the semifinal before rain, which has wreaked havoc on this week’s schedule and forced some players to play twice in one day, forced the pair off the court.
When they returned about 90 minutes later, Djokovic was never pressured, breaking Tipsarevic’s serve three times and holding serve throughout the one hour, 45 minute match.
Djokovic will go into Sunday’s final with a 6-1 head-to-head record against Gasquet and has won all four meetings since losing to the Frenchman at the 2007 Tennis Masters Cup in China.
Gasquet, the tournament’s 14th seed, beat a higher-ranked opponent for the second time in three matches when he stunned big-serving American eighth-seed John Isner 7-6, 6-3.
The Frenchman, who beat fourth-seed Tomas Berdych in the last 16 but needed three sets to eliminate American Mardy Fish in the quarter-finals, was in solid form against Isner showed little fear of his opponent’s powerful serve.
The 21-year-old fired down four aces to Isner’s five but held his serve throughout the match and did not even allow the American a glimpse of a break point as he won 87 percent of his service points.
Canada’s Wozniak
falls in Montreal
quarterfinals
In Montreal, seventh-seeded Carolina Wozniacki ended Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak’s run in the Rogers Cup, beating the Quebec favorite 6-4, 6-4 in the quarterfinals Saturday night.
Wozniak, from the Montreal suburb of Blainville, was the first Canadian since Patricia Hy-Boulais in 1992 to reach the quarterfinals in the event.
The two players with similar names have met nine times, and Wozniak’s only win was in Tokyo in 2009 when the Dane was forced to retire in the first set because of a viral infection.
“It feels like she always comes up with her best tennis against me, for some reason,” Wozniak said. “Every time I see we’re playing each other I want to step it up also. Hopefully, next time it’s my win.”
Earlier in the day, Wozniak finished off a rain-delayed match by topping Christina McHale 7-6 (5), 6-3. Wozniacki playing the full match Saturday, beating Varvara Lepchenko 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 in the afternoon. Wozniacki received treatment at courtside for a right leg problem early in the second set, but completed the third-round match.
“I started feeling things in my knee,” Wozniacki said. “I put the tape on it and it felt much better. I didn’t feel it at all out there.”
In the semifinals, Wozniacki will face fifth-seeded Petra Kvitova, a 6-3, 6-2 winner over Tamira Paszek.
In the other quarterfinals, 10th-seeded Na Li beat second-seeded Agnieszka Radwanska 6-2, 6-1, and 16th-seeded Lucie Safarova topped Roberta Vinci 6-2, 6-2.