Tennis Round-up: Paes in Santo Domingo Open final

Veteran Leander Paes is one win away from winning his second title of the season on the Challenger circuit, reaching the final of the Santo Domingo Open with partner Miguel Angel Reyyes-Varela.

The second seeded Indo-Mexican pair prevailed 6-4, 7-6(3) over Argentine combine of Tomas Lipovsek Puches and Juan Ignacio Londero in one hour and 23 minutes.

Paes and Angel dropped their serve twice but broke their rivals thrice to take the opening set. In the second set too, the two pairs broke each other twice before Paes and Angel won the tie-breaker to seal a spot in the summit clash.

It will be the second consecutive final for Paes and Angel, who also reached the final at Montrrey Challenger last week, ending runners-up to Jeevan Nedunchezhiyan and Marcelo Arevalo.

Before this tournament, Paes ended runner-up at Montrrey, Chicago, Dallas on the ATP Challenger circuit and won the Newport Beach event.

Apart from these, Paes also reached the final at Winston-Salem Open and Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships on the ATP World Tour, ending runner-up with Jamie Cerretani in both the tournaments.

Pliskova sets up Tianjin final with Garcia

Top seed Karolina Pliskova produced a ruthless display as she raced past Switzerland's Timea Bacsinszky 6-2, 6-1 to reach the Tianjin Open final on Saturday.

Pliskova, who won the Pan Pacific Open title last month, dropped just eight points on serve and broke Bacsinszky four times to reach Sunday's final against France's Caroline Garcia.

World No 6 Pliskova, currently eighth in the Race to Singapore standings, is battling for one of the three available spots in the season-ending WTA Finals starting on October 21.

The 26-year-old Czech would improve her chances by claiming her third title of the season on Sunday.

"I know I have a good chance to get to Singapore between this week and next week as well," former world number one Pliskova said.

"I think it was a pretty okay year for me and if I end it in Singapore it's going to be amazing for me. It's always a goal... so hopefully, I can end there."

Second seed Garcia cruised past Taiwan's Hsieh Su-Wei 6-3, 6-4 to move into her first final since lifting back-to-back titles in Wuhan and Beijing last year.