Wawrinka, Zverev into Geneva final

Defending champion Stan Wawrinka advanced to the Geneva Open final by beating unseeded Andrey Kuznetsov 6-3 7-6 (7-4) on Friday.

The top-seeded Wawrinka will face qualifier Mischa Zverev of Germany, who has peaked this week after a poor clay-court season and beat second-seeded Kei Nishikori 6-4 3-6 6-3 in the other semi-final.

Wawrinka, the US Open champion, will seek a 16th career singles titles and a seventh on clay, including the 2015 French Open. Zverev is looking for his first title at age 29.

Still, Zverev beat the third-ranked Wawrinka when they last played, at the Swiss Indoors in Basel in October.

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Wawrinka clinched with a service winner against the 85th-ranked Kuznetsov.

Earlier, Zverev wasted two match-point chances on Nishikori’s serve before breezing through his next service game to clinch with a backhand volley winner.

The final on Saturday will be only the second of Zverev’s injury-hit career. The Russian-born left-hander was runner-up at Metz, France, in September 2010.

As recently as March 2015, Zverev had a ranking in excess of 1000 and was being overshadowed by his younger brother Alexander, now a top-10 player at age 20 after winning the Rome title last weekend.

Mischa Zverev’s win over top-ranked Andy Murray at the Australian Open in January – before a quarter-finals loss to Roger Federer – lifted him to a then-career best No.35.

However, he had a 1-6 record on clay in recent weeks and needed to come through qualifying to get into the Geneva main draw.