STUTTGART, Germany, July 20 (UPI) -- No. 3 Guillermo Canas of Argentina beat top-seed Jiri Novak, 6-4, 6-0, Saturday in the semifinals of the $475,000 Mercedes Cup claycourt tournament and will meet Russian Mikhail Youzhny in Sunday's final.
Canas is gunning for his second tour title of the year. He won the Chennai hardcourt event in January and then failed to rediscover that form until the claycourt season, making the final at Casablanca and the quarterfinal of the French Open.
Canas competed here for the first time last year and advanced all the way to the final, where he lost to Gustavo Kuerten.
Novak of the Czech Republic was making his third semifinal appearance here, but has yet to reach the final. A semifinalist at the Australian Open, Novak has not won an ATP tournament in over a year, capturing the Gstaad claycourt title in July 2001.
Youzhny outlasted German Lars Burgsmuller, 6-3, 4-6, 7-5, in a semifinal match of unseeded players. The 20-year-old Youzhny stunned No. 4 Younes El Aynaoui of Morocco and and Burgsmuller upset defending champion Kuerten in the quarterfinals.
