New Zealand's Marina Erakovic rallied to defeat defending champion Tamira Paszek 2-6, 7-5, 6-4 on Saturday and reach her first WTA final at the $220,000 Quebec City Challenge. In Sunday's championship match, the 85th-ranked Kiwi will face Czech sixth seed Barbora Zahlavova Strycova who easily defeated Dutchwoman Michaella Krajicek 6-4, 6-3 in the other semi-final.
Like Erakovic, the 25-year-old Zahlavova Strycova is gunning for her first WTA Tour title. They have never faced each other on the tour.
The 23-year-old Erakovic, a 2008 Olympian, had been 0-3 in prior WTA semi-final matches. She had not reached a WTA semi-final since 2008 at Birmingham. Her other semi-finals, also in 2008, were at Memphis and her hometown of Auckland.
Austrian third seed Paszek, who reached her first Grand Slam quarter-final this year at Wimbledon, needed only 36 mninutes to capture the opening set, in which she did not drop a point when facing a second serve from Erakovic.
But Erakovic battled back and broke in the final game to complete her comeback after two hours and 27 minutes.