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Rain halts Dubai final

Rain halts Dubai final

02/28/2010 03:47:20 AM

The final of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships between Novak Djokovic and Mikhail Youzhny will resume on Sunday after rain halted play.

Defending champion Djokovic was leading 7-5 2-0 when rain forced the players off the court for a second time.

Play had initially been suspended in the first game of the second set and Djokovic just had time to hold serve and then break his Russian opponent before another downpour.

The Serbian had earlier taken a rollercoaster first set with his third break of serve, and fifth in total, as Youzhny served at 5-6 down.

Meanwhile, Ernests Gulbis reached his first ATP Tour final after beating Jarkko Nieminen in their rain-interrupted semi-final at the Delray Beach International Championships on Saturday.

The 22-year-old Latvian clinched his place with a 6-4 6-4 win and will now meet second seed Ivo Karlovic in Sunday's final.

Karlovic was also a comfortable winner as he cast aside defending champion Mardy Fish 6-2 6-3.

Gulbis had been made to wait to reach his maiden final when the rain came with the world No.72 about to serve for the match with the score 6-4 5-4.

The players were off court for just shy of three hours but when they returned Gulbis quickly sewed up his place, finishing the match with his ninth ace.

"Finally my first final," Gulbis said.

"It feels really good. It's a lot of (rankings) points and I don't have points to defend until the end of the year, so I can make a move in the rankings."

"I can only go up, I can not fall out of the top 100 with nothing to defend."

Sunday's final looms as a battle of two big servers with Karlovic dominating Fish on his delivery.

The Croatian sent down seven aces, but more impressively did not have to defend a single break point.

 
Photograph Copyright : Getty Images

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