Briefly : Muster and Kafelnikov into final

Tennis

The two top seeds, Thomas Muster of Austria and Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia, won their semi-finals yesterday at the Mercedes Cup tennis tournament in Stuttgart. Muster, 28, had little trouble with the sixth seed, Alberto Berasategui of Spain, taking early service breaks in both sets to wrap up the match in 77 minutes and qualify for his 50th career final. For Kafelnikov, the reigning French Open champion and the first ever Russian to win a Grand Slam singles crown, it was a hard day's work against Alex Corretja of Spain, the 12th seed. Kafelnikov, 22, jumped off to an early lead, breaking Corretja in the first set to win 6-3 in just 36 minutes. But a determined Corretja hung on in the second set, forcing Kafelnikov into a tie-break, which the Russian won 7-4. "To be honest I was getting a little tired and I wanted to get it over with as quickly as possible," Kafelnikov said. "I don't know what would have happened in the third set." Kafelnikov said he was confident about today's final. "I'm going in thinking I can win. Tomorrow I will try to play my best tennis," he said.