Unseeded Tim Henman inflicted the first defeat on Andy Roddick since the American became world number one, winning their Paris Masters semi-final 7-6, 7-6.
The Briton won on his sixth match-point and will play either 14th seed Jiri Novak of the Czech Republic or unseeded Andrei Pavel of Romania in the final.
Henman broke the feared Roddick serve in the opening game of the match and played sublime tennis for five games before the American stemmed the tide of free-flowing winners.
Roddick broke back in the 10th game to take the set into a tiebreak which he let slip with two unforced errors, Henman winning it 7-4.
The second set was tense rather than beautiful to watch as an increasingly fractious Roddick, warned at the end of the first set for banging his racket to the ground, sought to raise his game to the level that won him the U.S. Open.
Henman, whose year has been disrupted following shoulder surgery, had one match-point in the 10th game which Roddick saved with a volley.
Again Roddick's game turned ragged in the tiebreak and he handed Henman a 5-1 lead. But the Briton, ranked fourth in the world last year, hesitated on the brink of victory, wasting four match-points before winning the match on another Roddick error.
Roddick became world number one on Thursday after reaching the quarter-finals here.
Earlier report
