TORONTO(AP) -Nicolas Kiefer of Germany defeated Gilles Simon of France 6-7 (4), 6-3, 7-6 (5) in 3 hours to advance to the Rogers Cup final on Saturday.
He'll meet either Spain's Rafael Nadal or Britain's Andy Murray, who played later Saturday.
Kiefer, 31, hasn't won an ATP title since 2000 Hong Kong and hasn't appeared in a final since 2005 St. Petersburg.
The first German to reach the final since Boris Becker 22 years ago won a plodding, messy match in front of a subdued Rexall Centre crowd that didn't seem to take an interest until the final tiebreak.
Simon and Kiefer mostly traded groundstrokes from the baseline. As he's done all tournament, Simon played patiently, kept the ball in play and waited for Kiefer to make mistakes. And, again, it worked, as Kiefer made 69 unforced errors.
But Simon made a few too many errors of his own. Up 5-4 in the third set, Simon had a ball gently bounce high in front of him and he primed for an overhead smash, before launching the ball into the bottom of the net.
He finished with 32 unforced errors, and capitalized only on three of 13 break-point opportunities.
Kiefer, meanwhile, hit the ball well, connecting on 50 winners and 12 aces.
