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Sharapova books final spot with back-to-back wins

Maria Sharapova spent over four hours on court as she rallied her way to the Strasbourg Invitational final © Getty Images

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Top seed Maria Sharapova is through to the final of the Strasbourg Invitational after she claimed back-to-back victories on a busy day of action.

Sharapova, who has been fighting a niggling elbow injury, was forced to play two matches in the same day after rain washed out her quarter-final match on Thursday. The world No. 13 beat Julia Goerges of Germany 7-6 6-1 before disposing of fifth-seed Anabel Medina Garrigues later in the day to setup the chance of winning her 22nd career title.

The Russian's exertions in the morning seemed to catch up with her in the semi-final as she managed to hold serve once in the opening set. The former World No. 1 rediscovered her form though and struck back to win the second set comfortably despite struggling to hit a first serve, before closing the match out with two breaks in the deciding set to seal a 4-6 6-2 6-2 win over her Spanish opponent.

Sharapova will take on Kristina Barrois in the final after the unseeded German overcame Vania King 2-6 6-2 7-6(6). The world No. 77 won just one more point than her opponent during a tight contest and failed to serve the match out at 6-5 in the second, allowing King to break back and force a tiebreaker. Berrios showed plenty of nerve though as she won four straight points to seal a place in her first WTA Tour final.

Alexandra Dulgheru remained on course to defend her Warsaw Open title after pulling off a shock defeat of third seed Na Li.

World No. 32, who claimed the scalps of defending champion Dinara Safina in Rome and Elena Dementieva in Madrid, continued her impressive run of form with a 6-4 3-6 6-4 victory. The Romanian saved seven break points as she frustrated her opponent to move into the final for the second consecutive year.

Li looked to be on course for her first final of the year after comfortably taking the second set to level the scores, but Dulgheru dug deep to deny Li an all-Chinese final.

Dulgheru is just one match away from her second WTA Tour title, with another Chinese opponent, Zheng Jie, up next, after Zheng overpowered Hungarian qualifier Greta Arn 6-4 7-5.

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