NICE, France – Nicolas Almagro of Spain beat Gilles Simon of France 6-1, 6-3 in the Open de Nice Friday to reach his third final of the season.
Almagro, who had lost his previous two matches against Simon, hit eight aces and saved all four break points he faced.
He won on indoor clay in Sao Paulo in February and bids for his 12th career title against American qualifier Brian Baker, who outlasted Nikolay Davydenko 6-7 (5), 6-4, 6-2 in 2 hours, 32 minutes.
Baker will play in his first ATP final. He’s on a 15-match winning streak, starting with qualifying for and winning a challenger in the US which earned him a wild card into his first French Open. Ranked 216, he qualified in Nice and saved a match point in the quarterfinals against Mikhail Kukushkin.
On Friday, he broke Davydenko, a former world No. 3, three times in the deciding set.
Radwanska-Halep final
No. 1 seed Agnieszka Radwanska will face Romanian world No. 49 Simona Halep in the final of the WTA event in Brussels Saturday after both won their semifinals Friday.
Radwanska overcame Estonia’s eighth seed Kaia Kanepi 7-6 (10-8), 6-3, while Halep disposed of Sweden’s Sofia Arvidsson, also in straight sets, 6-4, 6-3.
For Halep it will be a first-ever WTA Tour final, while world number three Radwanska is chasing her third title of the year after wins in Dubai and Miami.

Schiavone faces Cornet
Francesca Schiavone beat Sloane Stephens of the United States 7-5, 6-1 Friday to reach the Strasbourg International final, where she will play Alize Cornet of France.
The second-seeded Italian dropped her own serve three times, but broke Stephens’ serve six times. Schiavone, the 2010 French Open champion bids for her fifth career title against Cornet, who rallied to beat fellow French player Pauline Parmentier 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 in a long, error-strewn match that featured 16 double faults and 13 serve breaks.
The 22-year-old Cornet won her only career title four years ago in Budapest, Hungary. The Strasbourg final is the fourth in her career, but only the first since 2008.

Serbia in final
In Duesseldorf, GErmany. Janko Tipsarevic beat Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 6-4, 3-6, 7-5 to give Serbia a place in the final of the Team World Cup Friday.
Tipsarevic secured an unassailable 2-0 lead for the 2009 titlist over the defending champion.
Kohlschreiber saved two match points in the decisive set, but Tipsarevic served out the match. — Agencies