TENNIS WORLD

German Nicolas Kiefer earned a place in his first career ATP Masters Series final, holding off a late charge from Frenchman Gilles Simon 6-7(4), 6-3, 7-6(5) on Saturday at the Rogers Masters in Toronto.
Kiefer, who posted consecutive Top 10 wins over No. 4 Nikolay Davydenko and No. 8 James Blake to reach the semifinals, had his work cut out for him against last week's Indianapolis champion Simon.
Kiefer appeared on the verge of closing out the third set comfortably with a chance to break Simon to go up 5-2, but failed to convert. Simon instead broke the German in the next game to level the match at 4-all, and both players held serve the rest of the way to send the match to a decisive tie-break. Kiefer won the final two points to secure the win in just under three hours.
"I'm very happy with the way I was winning today," said Kiefer. "I didn't play my best tennis, but in the important moments I could pick up my game and I was playing pretty good."

Kiefer, the oldest player left in the draw at 31 years of age, is playing in his 74th career ATP Masters Series tournament since making his debut in 1995 at Essen (l. to Washington in 1st RD). Prior to this week, his best results had been semifinal finishes at this event in 1999 (l. to T. Johansson) and 2004 (l. to Roddick) and at Madrid in 2007 (l. to Federer).
He is trying to become the 54th different ATP Masters Series winner (since 1990), and also the first German winner since Tommy Haas captured the Stuttgart title in 2001. Boris Becker (5), Michael Stich (2) and Haas are the only Germans to have won an ATP Masters Series shield.
The German has a 6-12 lifetime record in ATP finals (0-4 in North America), and will attempt to end a title drought dating back to October 2000 at Hong Kong. This is his 140th tournament played since that title. He's also attempting to break a streak of nine consecutive ATP finals lost.
Kiefer is the first unseeded player to reach the Canada final since Richard Gasquet in 2006 (l. to Federer). Argentine Guillermo Canas was the last unseeded player to capture the title, defeating Andy Roddick in the 2002 final.The 23-year-old Simon, currently ranked a career-high No. 22, had entered the semifinal meeting with a nine-match winning streak and won his fourth career ATP title last week at Indianapolis (d. Tursunov). He posted the biggest win of his career when he upset top seed Roger Federer in the second round on Wednesday.
Simon said about his recent success: "I didn't know I was about to do something like this. That's a good point, even today. I was really tired before the match, and finally I could play more than three hours. I'm surprising myself every day. I try to keep all the good things I've done during the last few weeks to improve my game a little bit."