Harsh Mankad's fine run in the Indian Oil Servo ATP Challenger ended on Friday when he lost in the semi-finals.
The 23-year-old Indian Davis Cupper from Mumbai had his chances to move into the title round, but failed to deliver when it mattered most against second seeded Frenchman Gregory Carraz, who won 7-6 (7/3), 7-6 (8/6) an absorbing two-hour encounter.
In Saturday's final, Carraz will clash with eighth seeded Gilles Elseneer of Belgium.
Elseneer surprised second seeded Ivo Heuberger of Switzerland 6-3, 3-6, 6-1 in the second semi-final.
The booming serves of the 28-year-old Paris-based Carraz made the difference in his match against Mankad, at the Karnataka State Lawn Tennis Association courts.
"He missed his chances. He was under pressure to reach the final. Today I did not play well but my serves helped me," said Carraz, who made it to his second Challenger final.
Mankad, who was the lone Indian left in the fray, started on a promising note, breaking Carraz, who lost in the second round of Wimbledon last year, in the third game of the first set, but dropped his own immediately.
Thereafter, both Mankad, a wild-card entrant here, and Carraz held serve, even in the tie-breaker. The latter was outstanding, giving no room to the Indian to recover.
The second set also went with serve. But Mankad, down 1-4 in the tie-breaker, staged a dramatic come-back to level at 5-5. The Frenchman, however, held his nerve and walked away with the set and the match.
Mankad did not appear to be perturbed with the result.
"I played my natural game. It was one of those days when things did not go in my favour," he said.
The pair of Yves Allegro (Switzerland) and Jean-Francois Bachelot (France) advanced to the doubles title round.
In the semi-finals, they beat the pair of Noam Okun (Israel) and Arvind Parmar (Britain) 6-4, 5-7, 7-6 (7-5), while Rodolphe Cadart and Gregory Carraz (both France) bt Prakash Amritraj/Rohan Boppanaa 7-6 (11/9), 6-1.
