Flavio Cobolli ended top seed Alexander Zverev's Munich Open title defense on Saturday as the Italian breezed past the world number three in straight sets to book his place in the final against Ben Shelton.
Fourth seed Cobolli downed the home favorite 6-3, 6-3 in just under 70 minutes in their semi-final meeting.
The 23-year-old's blistering performance put paid to Zverev's hopes for a record fourth title on the red dirt in Munich.
"It was one of my best matches ever against one of my biggest friends on tour," AFP quoted Cobolli as saying.
"I'm a little bit shy when I play with a big player, but today I played one of my best performances and I'm really happy."
Cobolli edged ahead of Zverev when he broke the German to love in the fourth game of the first set.
Zverev struggled to make inroads on Cobolli's serve over the course of the match, and when the world number 16 pounced on his opponent's first service game of the second set the writing was on the wall for Zverev.
Two punishing crosscourt forehands followed up by a crisp volley to finish off game seven secured Cobolli a double break and gave him the chance to serve for the match.
But Zverev hit back immediately as he secured his first break points of the encounter, converting at the second time of asking to halt his opponent.
A brilliant forehand on the run handed Cobolli match point in the next game and when Zverev framed a deep return the match was decided.
Cobolli advances to his second final of the season, where he will look to add to the title he picked up in Acapulco in February.
Shelton, who later Saturday beat qualifier Alex Molcan 6-3, 6-4, will be the man standing in Cobolli's way as the American seeks to go one better than last year when he lost the Munich title match to Zverev.
Second seed Shelton broke in the sixth game of the first set to get his nose in front against the 166th-ranked Slovakian and then secured a crucial second break of the match to go 5-4 up in the final set.
The 23-year-old was on form with his serve as Molcan managed to engineer just one break point across the two sets, which Shelton saved.
