October 30, 2005	Sunday	Ramzan 25, 1426

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LINZ (Austria), Oct 29: Patty Schnyder defeated Ana Ivanovic 7-5 6-2 in the semifinals of the Linz Open but could miss Sunday’s title match against Nadia Petrova after injuring her left wrist in a fit of temper.

The left-handed Swiss, who advanced to her second final in as many weeks, said she would visit a local hospital to get the injury examined.

Schnyder picked up the injury when she slammed her racket to the ground after dropping serve for a second time.

If she is fit, Schnyder will play third seed Petrova after the Russian beat unseeded Czech Kveta Peschke 6-3 6-4.

Petrova, who is still searching for her first WTA crown after finishing runner-up four times, will be aiming to break title jinx at the site of her first final in 2003.

Schnyder chalked up a fourth win this year over the 17-year-old Serb in a scrappy affair.

Kiefer in final

SAINT PETERSBURG (Russia): Sweden’s Thomas Johansson, the second seed of the one-million-dollar ATP Saint Petersburg Open, battled into the final past Spain’s Fernando Verdasco on Saturday.

Johansson, who is 17th in the ATP race, won 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 to level his head-to-head record with Verdasco, who was seeded eighth here, at 1-1.

Both players held their serves until the eighth game when the 21-year-old Spaniard suddenly lost his nerve and produced a catalogue of errors allowing Johansson to take the opening set in 29 minutes.

But in the second, Verdasco managed to break his opponent’s serve to pull the scores level at one set all after 65 minutes on court.

No big serves were produced in the deciding set until the eighth game, when Johansson, who is seeking his career ninth title here, broke again to win the set and the match in one hour 39 minutes.

In Sunday’s final, Johansson will face fifth seed Nicolas Kiefer, who easily outclassed unheralded Czech Robin Vik in straight sets.

The 28-year-old German won 6-3, 6-4 in his first ever meeting with Vik, who is 124th in the ATP race, in one hour 12 minutes.

Kiefer, who played in the final at Moscow two weeks ago, was in complete command right from the start, breaking his rival’s serve twice to gain a commanding 5-0 lead.

After that Vik, who was playing his first career ATP semi-final, threw caution to the wind and managed to reduce the arrears with a break in the seventh game but Kiefer nevertheless took the opening set in 34 minutes.

In the second, Kiefer eased up the pressure but clinched a comfortable 2-0 advantage, which he kept through to enter his second final of the year.

Nalbandian NAILED

BASEL: Marcos Baghdatis battered David Nalbandian out of the 829,000-euro Swiss Indoors 6-2, 7-6 (7/3) Saturday to dent the Argentine’s chances of reaching the year-end finale.

Qualifier Baghdatis, the world number 85 whose career looked in doubt early in the season prior to an arm muscle operation, moved into the first final of his career.

The Paris-based player will now face the winner from fourth seed Fernando Gonzalez and Dominik Hrbaty in Sunday’s best-of-five-set final.

He increasingly confident Baghdatis bombed over four straight aces in a love game which forced a second-set tiebreaker against Nalbandian, now fighting to earn a place in the season-ending Masters Cup with one week of regular season play to go.

Semifinals results: Marcos Baghdatis (CYP) bt David Nalbandian (ARG) 6-2, 7-6 (7/3); Fernando Gonzalez (CHI) bt Dominik Hrbaty (SVK) 6-0, 6-3