Cypriot qualifier Marcos Baghdatis stunned Argentine second seed David Nalbandian 6-2, 7-6 on Saturday to reach the Swiss Indoors final.
The 20-year-old former Australian Open junior winner will face Fernando Gonzalez in Sunday's final -- following the Chilean fourth seed's 6-0, 6-3 win over Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty.
"I'm not surprised by the result because I know I can play well," Baghdatis insisted.
"I just need time to get used to the game and to get used to playing the top players."
Baghdatis is currently ranked 85th in the world, although his progress since winning the Australian Open junior crown in 2003 has been hampered by two separate injury lay-offs that kept him out of the game for a total of six months.
Relying on fast footwork and an array of cleverly-disguised strokes, the Cypriot crowd-pleaser made an explosive start to Saturday's match -- breaking Nalbandian twice to take a 4-0 lead.
Still chasing a place in the season-ending Masters Cup, the Argentine threatened to fight back in the second set when he converted his first break point of the match to go 4-2 in front.
IMPATIENT APPROACH
But the Argentine hit four unforced errors to immediately throw away the advantage.
"I think I didn't start at my best level in the beginning," Nalbandian acknowledged after losing the second set tiebreak 7-3.
"I'm closer to the Masters Cup now but a win today would have brought me even closer. I could have had a bigger advantage over the other guys but it wasn't really good enough."
Gonzalez maintained his own outside chances of reaching the Shanghai finale with a comfortable win in just 55 minutes over fifth seed Hrbaty.
"I felt really good today because my serve was working really well and I was very relaxed when playing his serve," Gonzalez said.
"At times I was able to play some kind of fantasy shots and I was lucky too because I was winning almost all my drop shots.
"The final will be tough though because I saw a little of (Baghdatis) playing today and he's a young player with a lot of confidence -- and a good player on carpet."