Unseeded American Alison Riske cruised past Belgium’s Kirsten Flipkens to book her place in her first final of the year at the Nuremberg Open.

Riske broke twice in the first set to seize the advantage and stepped it up again in the second to polish off a 6-3 6-1 win in just over two hours.

Both Riske and Flipkens were playing their second match of the day, with Riske having earlier beaten Sorana Cirstea – who retired trailing 2-6 7-5 1-0 in their quarter-final – while Flipkens saw off third seed Kiki Bertens 5-7 6-3 7-6 (7/3).

In the final Riske will take on Sweden’s Johanna Larsson, who scored an impressive 4-6 6-3 6-1 win over Czech eighth seed Katerina Siniakova.

Johanna Larsson
Johanna Larsson will face Alison Riske in the Nuremberg Open final (Steven Paston/PA)

It was a notable success for Larsson who, despite appearing in three finals in her home tournament in Bastad, has not reached a final outside Sweden since Portoroz in 2010.

Dominika Cibulkova was outplayed for a set and half, but managed to fight back from the brink to beat Mihaela Buzarnescu and reach the final of the Internationaux de Strasbourg.

Buzarnescu was dominating the exchanges and fashioned a 6-2 5-3 lead to put her on the brink of victory before the course of the match altered abruptly.

Cibulkova battled back to clinch a second set tie-break then stepped up in the decider as her opponent’s game fell away to claim a 2-6 7-6 (7/5) 6-1 success.

In the final Cibulkova will face Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova, who led top seed Ashleigh Barty 6-4 1-0 when the Australian was forced to retire due to injury.