MONTREAL (AP)—Teenager Dominika Cibulkova ousted her fourth seeded player of the tournament, rallying after a rain delay to defeat Marion Bartoli 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 Saturday to reach the final of the Rogers Cup.
The 19-year-old Cibulkova, from Slovakia, will play Dinara Safina for the championship. The seventh-seeded Safina was a 6-0, 2-6, 6-3 winner over 11th-seeded Victoria Azarenka in the other semifinal.
Cibulkova, the world’s 31st-ranked player, has defeated fifth-seeded Elena Dementieva, 12th-seeded Nadia Petrova, second-seeded Jelena Jankovic and now the 10th-seeded Bartoli to reach her second career WTA Tour final.
Safina improved her record since May 11 to 27-3.
The Cibulkova-Bartoli match was suspended three times for a total of four hours and 11 minutes.
Bartoli took the first set 6-4 before the first interruption. The third time play was stopped, the rain continued for more than three hours with Cibulkova leading 2-1 in the second set.
“It really helped me that it started raining because I was able to go in the locker room and talk to my coach,” Cibulkova said. “It wasn’t easy to talk to my coach because he was really mad.”