Vienna - Juergen Melzer followed in the footsteps of Thomas Muster, becoming first home player since the still-popular local legend in 1995 to reach the final of the Bank Austria Trophy Saturday with fighting comeback win over Janko Tipsarevic. Melzer, seeded seventh, denied the Serb the chance at a second consecutive final after a loss to Mikhail Youzhny last weekend in Moscow.
Melzer produced a 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 semi-final success to line up against either Croatian top seed Marin Cilic or German number four Philipp Kohlschreiber.
Melzer has played a final per year for the last five years, but has come good only once, on clay in Bucharest in 2006. He now owns a hat-trick of Austrian trophy matches after Kitzbuehel 2008 and St Poelten in 2005.
"It's about time for me to win another final," said the winner, who credited a second-set tiebreak with lifting his game as he brought the set level at one each with an ace.
"I didn't have the best start but winning the tiebreaker really helped my confidence for the third set," said Melzer. "In the third was feeling really good with my game.
"I really wanted to give all I could to win."
The Vienna-born left-hander denied Tipsarevic as the Serb tried to rally trailing 0-30 in the seventh game of the final set. But Melzer got the break and took the 4-3 lead which saw him through to victory.
Melzer, 35-29 in a busy season, has played three semi-finals in 2009, including Umag and Bangkok. He has moved through with the loss of just one set this week.
