Top seed Kim Clijsters held off a late fighback to beat Czech teen Nicole Vaidisova 6-2, 7-6 in the semi-finals of the Acura Classic in San Diego on Saturday, setting up a final clash with Maria Sharapova.
Number two Sharapova was pushed hard by Patty Schnyder before winning 7-5, 6-4 to reach her first Acura final.
Clijsters, who picked up her 24th consecutive win in North American summer hard court events, dominated early with precise groundstrokes and vicious returns to take the opening set.
"I'm hitting the ball deep and well," said Clijsters, who has won every major North American hard court title except San Diego.
"I'm moving well, my tactics are good and my game is falling into place. I'm not serving well, but my second shots have been very good."
Clijsters, who also beat the Czech 17-year-old in the semi-finals of Stanford last week, broke Vaidisova twice to open up a 3-0 lead in the second set.
But Vaidisova came storming back to break Clijsters three times and take the game to a tie-breaker.
The Czech failed to hold her nerve, however, and Clijsters romped to a 7-0 win.
"I didn't play smart and lost it a little bit in the end," Vaidisova said. "In the tie-breaker, I played some stupid points."
Sharapova served superbly to reach her first WTA Tour final since March in a match that lasted one hour, 39 minutes.
Clijsters has a 4-0 edge over Sharapova, including the semi-finals of the 2005 US Open.
"[Clijsters] not only gets a lot of balls back, they have a lot of juice on them," Sharapova said. "I need to take certain things away from her, but still play my game and not try to play anything extra special."
