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Updated at 8:47 a.m., Saturday, June 16, 2007

Roddick advances to Queen's Club final

Associated Press

Second-seeded Andy Roddick and unseeded Nicolas Mahut advanced to the final of the Queen's Club grass-court championships today.

Roddick beat Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 6-4, 7-5, and Mahut reached his first final by serving 17 aces in a 6-3, 7-6 (4) victory over 14th-seeded Arnaud Clement.

"I thought I played a lot better today, pretty consistently," Roddick said. "I was making returns, wasn't making a lot of sloppy errors. So I was pleased."

After waiting out a three-hour rain delay before the first semifinal, Roddick broke Tursunov to lead 5-4 in the first set and then closed it out by winning the final 10 points.

Roddick missed a chance to break Tursunov at 3-3 in the second set, but later went up 6-5 when the Russian made a forehand error.

The American improved to 2-1 against the seventh-seeded Tursunov, who beat Roddick in the 2006 Davis Cup semifinals by winning the fifth set 17-15.

Roddick's fourth final at the Queen's Club comes after his first-round exit at the French Open.

"This is where I've been lucky enough to kind of salvage my season a couple times after some dodgy clay-court play," Roddick said. "It's always nice to come here. I'd love to win a fourth one."

Mahut, who upset top-seeded Rafael Nadal in the quarterfinals and beat No. 5 Ivan Ljubicic and No.11 Jonas Bjorkman, took the opening set with a single service break.

Mahut double-faulted to face a break point while trailing Clement 3-2 in the second set, but he saved the game and went on to close out the match in the tiebreaker.