De Minaur falls short in search for first ATP title

De Minaur held his serve in the first game of the second set but Zverev resumed his dominance by taking the second and breaking his opponent in the third for a 2-1 lead.

But Zverev is targeting the US Open as the competition he can finally leapfrog the 20-time Grand Slam victor in the world rankings.

Zverev will seek his third title of 2018 when he plays either Russia's Andrey Rublev or Australia's Alex de Minaur in Sunday's final.

"I'm really proud of myself".

The top seed continued to assert his dominance by forcing de Minaur to go for more and produce errors out of him.

"I just couldn't see myself going any further but I kept pushing myself, kept trying every single point and managed to turn that around".

"That's probably the best win of my career". A couple of points later, de Minaur pushed a forehand long, dropped his head and screamed at himself. The No. 10 seed Tsitsipas beat No. 3 David Goffin 6-3, 6-4.

Alex de Minaur has boosted his reputation as one of the brightest young talents in tennis by reaching his first ATP Tour 500 final in Washington DC.

The German secured a 6-2 6-4 triumph in under 90 minutes to continue a fine year that has already included two tour titles in Munich and Madrid.

Zverev beat 10th-seed Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-2 6-4 in their semi-final to qualify for the decider.

The 21-year-old German, now victor of nine career victories, became the tournament's first repeat champion since Argentine Juan Martin del Potro prevailed in 2008-09.

"What a fantastic week for me", Zverev said. "We could be playing against each other for 15 more years!"

At 21, Zverev was the oldest player in the semi-finals along with the 19-year-old Tsitsipas and de Minaur and 20-year-old Rublev. "At least I could say I'm on the same page in one tournament with Lleyton", De Minaur said.

Svetlana Kuznetsova is through to the women's final.

In the companion WTA event, two-time Grand Slam champion Svetlana Kuznetsova of Russian Federation advanced by defeating Kazakh eighth seed Yulia Putintseva 6-2, 6-2 in a quarter-final rained out Friday.

World number 128 Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open and 2009 French Open champion, will play for the title Sunday against the later victor between 44th-ranked Croatian Donna Vekic and China's 85th-ranked Zheng Saisai. De Minaur backed that up with a 6-4 7-5 victory over Steve Johnson and an impressive 6-2 4-6 6-2 win against Hyeon Chung to reach the quarterfinals where he was due to face Andy Murray.

Rublev broke DeMinaur at love to close out the first set and raced ahead 6-2 in the tiebreaker, but De Minaur hit an ace, service victor and forehand victor to pull level, then forced a third set on a Rublev mis-hit and wide backhand.