PARIS: France’s Adrian Mannarino upset Dutch second seed Botic van de Zandschulp 6-0, 6-4 on Friday to reach the ATP Winston-Salem Open final against Serbian Laslo Djere.
World number 65 Mannarino won 21 of 26 first-serve points and never faced a break point in dispatching the 23rd-ranked Dutchman after 75 minutes.
In the other semi-final, 89th-ranked Djere needed nine match points but finally dispatched 102nd-ranked Swiss Marc-Andrea Huesler 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (7/5) after two hours and 18 minutes.
Huesler saved six match points in a 17-minute 10th game of the second set and saved another in the 12th game to set up a second tiebreaker.
After denying Djere on an eighth match point in the tie-breaker, Djere got his first match point on his serve and won it on a forehand winner.
Djere reached his fourth career ATP final, his first on hardcourt after three on clay. He won titles at Rio in 2019 and Sardegna in 2020 but lost his Sardegna title defense last year.
Mannarino has lost nine of his 10 prior ATP finals, collecting his lone tour title in 2019 on Rosmalen grass.
It will be the 34-year-old Frenchman’s first ATP final since November 2020, when he lost the Astana Open final to Australian John Millman.
Van de Zandschulp is seeded 21st at the US Open and will begin his run on the New York hardcourts against a qualifier.
Mannarino also plays a qualifier in the first round of the US Open.
Djere’s first match at the US Open is against ninth seed Andrey Rublev while Huesler opens against 19th seed Denis Shapovalov of Canada.
