Tunisian qualifier Ons Jabeur has become the first player from her country to reach a WTA tennis final, where she will next face Daria Kasatkina for the Kremlin Cup title.
Jabeur, the 2011 junior champion at the French Open, beat Anastasija Sevastova 6-3 3-6 6-3 in the semifinals.
Playing her seventh match in as many days after coming through qualifying, Jabeur twice was down a break in the third set before breaking Sevastova at love to take a 5-3 lead.
The 101st-ranked Jabeur is now guaranteed to surpass the previous best ranking by a woman from an Arab country. Another Tunisian, Selima Sfar, reached No. 75 in 2001.
Meanwhile Russia's Kasatkina, the sixth seed, proved too strong for Britain's Johanna Konta, beating her 6-4 6-3 to advance.
Konta was broken in her second service game and squandered two break points in the next as the 21-year-old began to exert control.
Yet when Konta faced three set points on her own serve Kasatkina tightened up, allowing the former world No.4 to hold with a spectacular lob on the run.
In the next game Konta held three break points only to be pinned back to deuce, before Kasatkina gifted her the game with a double fault.
However, serving at 4-5 Konta was promptly broken again as the world No.14 snatched the opening set.
The pair exchanged breaks at the start of the second set but Kasatkina grabbed the decisive break in the fourth game and put her foot down, winning nine successive points on her way to a 4-1 lead.
The home favourite closed out the match in one hour and 31 minutes to set up a meeting with Jabeur in the final.
Since winning her first final in April 2017, Kasatkina has lost three in a row, including at last year's Kremlin Cup.
