Andy Roddick of the U.S. returns the ball against Dmitry Tursunov of Russia during their semi-final at the Artois tennis championships at Queen's Club in west London yesterday. Roddick won 6-4, 7-5. - Reuters

LONDON (AP):

ANDY RODDICK advanced to the final of the Queen's Club grasscourt championships yesterday by beating Dmitry Tursunov of Russia 6-4, 7-5.

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

"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."

He willplay Nicolas Mahut after the unseeded Frenchman served 17 aces to beat 14th-seeded Arnaud Clement 6-3, 7-6 (4) and reach his first career final.

Three-hour rain delay

After waiting out a three-hour rain delay before the semi-final, Roddick broke Tursunov to lead 5-4 in the first set and 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.

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 'dodgey' clay-court play," Roddick said. "It's always nice to come here. I'd love to win a fourth one.

"Today, I was pretty happy with most everything. You know, I feel like if I continue to kind of play that way, I have a good shot tomorrow."

Mahut, who upset top-seeded Rafael Nadal in the quarter-finals and also beat No. 5 Ivan Ljubicic and No. 11 Jonas Bjorkman, took the opening set with a single break of serve to lead 3-1.

He held to lead 5-2 after four consecutive aces, and kept his composure as Clement repeatedly argued with the umpire in the second set.

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.