World number one Roger Federer defeated Benjamin Becker of
Germany 6-3, 6-4 to reach the final of the Japan Open tennis
tournament on Saturday.
The 25-year-old Swiss, who set an Open era record of a 56-match
hard court winning streak earlier this year, pulled off a service
break once in each set to score a convincing win in just one
hour.
Britain's star Tim Henman secured a final berth for the first
time in two years and seven months when he came back from 2-4 down
to beat Lee Hyung-Taik of South Korea 6-4, 7-6 (7/5).
Federer, who had a tough three-set match against local hope
Takao Suzuki in the quarter-finals Friday, got off to a flying
start by converting the first chance to break in the second
game.
Becker got a break point at 30-40 in the fifth game by charging
to the net and forcing Federer to misfire a backhand, but failed to
capitalize.
After breaking Becker in the third game of the second set,
Federer went on to finish off the struggling German.
Federer hit a total of nine aces against Becker's four. He
improved his winning record on hard courts this season to 48-2.
Federer has made 13 finals out of 14 tournaments this season,
winning eight of them including victories at the Australian Open,
Wimbledon and the US Open.
In the women's singles semi-finals, Aiko Nakamura kept local
hopes alive by beating Chan Yung-jan of Chinese Taipei 7-6 (7/3),
2-6, 6-4 to make her first career appearance in a final on the
tour.
French top seed Marion Bartoli took the place against Nakamura
when she overwhelmed her compatriot and qualifier Camille Pin 6-0,
6-1.
(Xinhua News Agency October 8, 2006)