Pablo Carreno Busta reached his first ATP Masters 1000 and National Bank Open final after registering a 7-5, 6-7(7), 6-2 victory over Daniel Evans in the semifinal, here.
The 31-year-old had a match point in the second-set tie-break but saw his perfect set streak on the week snapped at nine before storming back in a dominant final set on Saturday night.
After so little separated the competitors for most of the two-hour, 58-minute marathon, Carreno Busta raced through the finish line by winning the final 12 points, including eight on return.
"It was fun for the crowd but for me it was tough. I had a match point in the second set but he served pretty good so I couldn't do anything. When you have a match point and have to play another set, it's always hard to do it," said Carreno Busta about the gripping encounter.
"Mentally I think I was very good. Probably the beginning of the third set was the hardest part of the match. But after that I thought I had to be more aggressive, try to push a lot, try to go to the net, and it was good," he added.
The Spaniard will next face eighth seed Hubert Hurkacz as he bids to become the first unseeded champion at the National Bank Open since Argentina's Guillermo Canas
in 2002.