Petzschner will now face Max Mirnyi and Andy Ram in the doubles final, and Gael Monfils in the singles title match. The temporary team of Mirnyi and Ram ousted Mahesh Bhupathi and Mark Knowles 2-6, 6-3, 10-8 (super-tiebreaker). Monfils outlasted Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-4, 5-7, 7-6(2) in the semifinals after blowing three match points at 6-5, 40-0 in the final set. It took Monfils two hours and 51 minutes to get the job done.

No such suspense took place at the IF Stockholm Open on Saturday. Not long into the second semifinal of the afternoon, the question was not who would win, but whether or not Robin Soderling would finish even faster than David Nalbandian had just one hour earlier. Nalbandian crushed Jarkko Nieminen 6-2, 6-1 in only one hour and four minutes, but he was one-upped by Soderling, who destroyed Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-0 in a mere 44 minutes.

The Swedish fans will be treated to an intriguing final Sunday. Before their man Soderling takes on Nalbandian, veteran Swede Jonas Bjorkman-along with partner Kevin Ullyett-will battle countrymen Johan Brunstrom and Michael Ryderstedt.

The Russian crowd also could not ask more much more on the penultimate day in Moscow. Russians Marat Safin and Igor Kunitsyn will clash for the Kremlin Cup title. Safin got a free pass into the final when Mischa Zverev pulled out due to illness, while Kunitsyn eased past soon-to-be retired Fabrice Santoro 6-4, 6-3.

Regardless of the outcome, the men’s final should be more fun for the fans than Saturday’s women’s title match. Russian Elena Dementieva steamrolled Jelena Jankovic 6-0 in the first set, but the Serb stormed back to win the final two sets 6-1, 6-0.

In Bensacon, Frenchman Marc Gicquel delighted the local crowd by winning the $125,000 event 7-6 6-4 over Alexander Peya of Austria. At an age where many of his contemporaries have retired, the 30 year old is playing some of the best tennis of his career. He reached the final at the ATP event in Lyon last November and has now picked up the biggest title of his career. While the final loss was disappointing for Peya, it was still his best result in quite some time. The 27 year old struggled to find his form throughout all of last year and found himself sitting at #249 in the rankings heading into Bensacon; this was his lowest ranking since mid-2006. The result propels Peya to a spot just outside of the top 200 this week and he’ll look to continue playing with the form that saw him reach a career high of #97 in the rankings.

Onto the women’s side, where, in Capriolo, top ranked British player Anne Keothavong lived up to her billing as the number one seed at this $25,000 event by winning the final 6-1 2-6 6-3 over Vesna Manasieva of Russia. The 24 year old Keothavong, who broke through on the WTA Tour last fall by reaching her first ever semifinal in Kolkata, has now fully recovered from a rib injury which hampered her at the end of last year and is setting her sights on becoming the first British woman to crack the top 100 since Sam Smith in 1999. Manasieva, who was searching for her first challenger title this week, has still had an impressive start to 2008 by reaching the quarterfinals of the WTA event in Pattaya City and qualifying for the WTA event in Auckland. With only a handful of points to defend until this summer, the teenager can only continue to climb up the rankings and may be a regular fixture on the WTA tour by the end of the year.

The city of Clearwater hosted the first of two $25,000 events in Florida this month. Regina Kulikova of Russia continued her dominance on the ITF circuit with a 6-4 6-4 victory in the final over qualifier Yevheniia Savranska of Ukraine. Kulikova, who broke out last summer by reaching the finals of six consecutive $25,000 events in Asia and winning three of them, swept through the tournament this week without losing a set. The nineteen year old rises to a new career high ranking this week and will be the favorite to win the $25,000 event in Fort Walton Beach this week. This tournament was also home to Venezuelan Milagros Sequera’s comeback. Sequera, who won the WTA event in Fes last year, was arguably playing the best tennis of her career before she sustained a left foot injury in August that took her off the tour for over six months. The effects may not have fully gone away either; she bowed out in the second round of the singles event and then withdrew from the doubles event.

Ukranian teenagers dominated the futures events on the women’s side this week with both Anastasia Kharchenko and Tetyana Arefyeva picking up titles. Unranked going into Benin City this week, Kharchenko stormed through qualifying and then breezed through the tournament without losing a set. With the title, the 18 year old will enter the rankings for the first time next week. Arefveya also picked up the first title of her career this week by winning the event in Melilla.

Next week will only feature smaller challenger events for both the men and the women, which will allow the chance for some new faces to break through. Thierry Ascione of France will lead the way as the top seed at the $50,000 event in Cherbourg, Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo is the top seed at the $35,000 event in Santiago, and Philipp Petzschner of Germany will look to build on his good form he showed at the event in Belgrade this month when he plays as the top seed at the $35,000 event in Wolfsburg. On the women’s side, top seeded Shuai Zhang of China is looking for her first title of the year while Kulikova hopes to make it two tournament wins in a row at the $25,000 event in Fort Walton Beach, the only challenger event for the ladies this week.