John Isner of the United States has survived another challenge to his endurance, beating the heat and Kevin Anderson of South Africa 6-3, 6-7 (9-7), 6-3 to advance to the Atlanta Tennis Championships final. Isner will face the winner of Saturday's late match between top seed Andy Roddick and Mardy Fish in Sunday's final. Isner says the sun was “brutal.” The 6-foot-9 Isner beat the 6-foot-8 Anderson in a matchup of two of the three tallest players in the ATP World Tour's top 100 rankings. Roddick defeated Xavier Malisse 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 and Fish cruised past fellow American Taylor Dent 6-3, 6-0. Fish is targetting back-to-back titles after winning on grass a fortnight earlier in Newport, Rhode Island. Melzer-Golubev final Jurgen Melzer of Austria will play Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan for the German Open title. The third-seeded Melzer beat Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-4, 6-2, while the No. 82-ranked Golubev defeated Florian Mayer of Germany 7-6 (6), 6-4 on Saturday to reach his first career final. No. 15-ranked Melzer was a semifinalist at the French Open and won the Wimbledon doubles title this year. He was also a semifinalist in Hamburg in 2004. Seppi had beaten Melzer in their previous two clay-court encounters. Bacsinszky enters final Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland rallied to beat Austria's Yvonne Meusburger 1-6, 6-4, 6-3 to reach the Gastein Ladies final at Bad Gastein, Austria. In her first final of the season, the second-seeded Bacsinszky will face either Alize Cornet or Julia Goerges, who play the second semifinal later Saturday. That start of that match was postponed due to rain. The 52nd-ranked Swiss player could win her second career title after Luxembourg in 2009. Bacsinszky lost all four service games in the opening set when she struggled to find the right length in her ground strokes. Bacsinszky, who was beaten by Meusburger at the Australian Open in January, took control afterward. The Gastein Ladies is the last clay-court tournament of the WTA Tour season. Chakvetadze-Larsson final Russian Anna Chakvetadze reached her first final in nearly two years when she beat local star Polona Hercog 0-6, 6-2, 6-2 in the Slovenia Open Saturday. She will play for the title with Swede Johanna Larsson, who advanced to her first WTA final when Russian Ksenia Pervak retired while trailing 6-2, 1-0. Chakvetadze won the last of her seven WTA titles in 2008. A top-five player in 2007, she's fallen to 103 in the rankings. Following her win over sixth-seeded compatriot Vera Dushevina in the quarterfinals, Chakvetadze removed No. 7 Hercog, the last seed in the tournament. Pervak came into the draw as a late replacement for injured French Open champion Francesca Schiavone.
