RIO — Fabio Fognini pulled off a huge upset, stunning top seed and holder Rafa Nadal 1-6, 6-2, 7-5 in the Rio Open semifinal Saturday. The Italian's spectacular victory ended world No. 3 Nadal's 52-match winning streak in semifinals on clay and earned him a place in the final against another Spaniard David Ferrer. Second seed Ferrer reached the final with a 7-5, 6-1 win over Austrian Andreas Haider-Maurer. “I'm really happy about this match. I beat the best player on this surface,” said the world No. 28, who has been in good form this year since winning the Australian Open doubles title with Simone Bolelli last month. “Rafa is always difficult. From the second set I played really well, and I tried to change a little bit to be more positive on court,” he was quoted as saying on the ATP Tour website. Nadal had complained of poor scheduling after Friday's quarterfinal win over Uruguayan Pablo Cuevas finished at 3.30 am Saturday. Fognini played a long last eight match that lasted more than three hours Friday before he overcame Argentine Federico Delbonis. The women's final will pitch 16th-ranked Italian Sara Errani, the top seed, against 75th-ranked Slovak Anna Schmiedlova Sunday. Errani came past fifth-seeded Swede Johanna Larsson 7-5, 6-3, while sixth seed Schmiedlova shocked second-seeded Romanian hope Irina Begu 6-3, 4-6, 6-2. Simon beats Monfils to win 12th career title Fifth-seeded Gilles Simon claimed his 12th career title after coming out on top of a tense three-set battle with fellow Frenchman Gael Monfils Sunday. Simon withstood 11 aces from Monfils and five breaks of serve before he proved the strongest in the tiebreak to win 6-4, 1-6, 7-6 (4). The 30-year-old Simon became the second most titled French player in the Open era, only trailing former French Open winner Yannick Noah, who amassed 23 titles during his career. Karlovic-Young final In Delray Beach, Ivo Karlovic will seek to keep the Delray Beach Open title in Croatian hands when he plays American Donald Young in Sunday's final in Florida. Fourth seed Karlovic moved closer to his sixth ATP title when he made quick work of Frenchman Adrian Mannarino with a straight sets semifinal victory Saturday. The 35-year-old pounded 17 aces and broke serve once in each set to triumph 6-3, 6-4 on the outdoor hardcourt. Earlier, the unseeded Young exerted considerably more energy in the other semi, edging Australian Bernard Tomic 4-6, 6-4, 6-2 in nearly two hours. — Agencies
