Tennis

Fabrice Santoro on Friday kept alive his hopes of back-to-back titles at the Campbell's Hall of Fame Tennis Championships.

The second-seeded Frenchman defeated unseeded American Vincent Spadea 7-6 (7/4) 6-1 in the grasscourt tournament's semi-finals on Saturday.

The defending champion, Santoro will face Prakash Amritraj, who continued his amazing run with a 7-6 (7/4) 4-6 6-3 victory over seventh-seeded Frank Dancevic.

The final will take place on Sunday.

The world number 57, Santoro won 71% of his service points and, after winning the first-set tie-break, dominated the second set to win the match in one hour 17 minutes.

Santoro, 35, capitalised on three of four break chances and also saved three of the four break-point opportunities for Spadea. It was the 450th victory of his career.

While Santoro has not won an ATP title since last year's win here, it is the first ATP final appearance for the 24-year-old Amritraj, who has spent most of this season on the Challenger circuit.

The world number 305, Amritraj survived 13 aces from the Canadian Dancevic, and only took advantage of one out of 14 break opportunities.

Leading 3-2 in the third set, Amritraj finally broke Dancevic and held serve to win the match.

Dancevic, 23, was attempting to reach his first championship match since last July at Indianapolis but could not hold off Amritraj, who had two ATP tour wins this season before the tournament.