Russia's Nikolay Davydenko slammed Andy Roddick back to earth as he hammered out a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 one day after the American had narrowly upset Roger Federer at the Miami Masters. ( dpa )
Fourth seed Davydenko clocked his first victory over Roddick in six matches with the semi-final win in less than 90 minutes.
The Russian will play on Sunday against Rafael Nadal as the Spanird reached his second final at Crandon Park 7-6 (8-6), 6-2 over Czech Tomas Berdych.
Roddick was unable to follow up on his twice-in-a-lifetime defeat of Federer, who stil stands 15- 2 in thei career series.
The American saved a match point before crashing out to Davydenko, who overcame nine aces off the Roddick racket while breaking three times.
The loss leaves Roddick at 19-4 with two titles this season but with little chance to gain with the clay season beginning for the avowed hard-courter.
Nadal needed more than an hour to win the marathon first set against Czech Berdych, missing on his first six set points.
The three-time French Open winner went wrong on three in the 10th game as he served leading 5-4.
Berdych also salvaged three more in the tiebreaker before Nadal went through on a Berdych double-fault.
In the second, the Spaniard quickly began to dominate as he broke twice to wrap up the win with 15 winners and three breaks of serve.
Berdych struck more than 30 unforced errors as Nadal moved ahead 4- 3 in their series by claiming his first win over the Czech on hardcourt.
"I think I am playing very well this tournament, so today was great match," said Nadal, who did not commit an unforced error in the second set.
"Against a very tough player like Berdych, I'm happy for the win""
"It was a tough match in the beginning of the first set," Nadal said. "He was hitting a lot of powerful winners."
"Finally winning the tiebreak was the key to the match."
Nadal said he was untroubled by hot steamy conditions.
"I'm from an island ( Mallorca) so this is normal for me," he said.
Berdych admitted that he ran out of gas in the closing stages of the draining contest.
"My battery was gone. The first set was the key of the match, and I unlikely lost a couple of points in the end of the set," he said.
"If you are not 100 per cent with him, then it's really tough to play."
Women play their final on Saturday, with Serena Williams facing Jelena Jankovic.