Safin targets 14th title

It took 95 minutes for Safin to overpower his 13th-seeded opponent.

Safin began the match with a scare as the recent Madrid Masters winner twisted his ankle in the first game of the match.

The French crowd rapidly found Safin wasn't too troubled with his foot breaking Canas to lead 4-1 and 5-2 with deep backhands.

The Argentine, who has improved from 274th to 14th in the ATP rankings this season, again lost serve to lose the set 6-2.

Canas then made Safin run more, found another gear and broke Safin to lead 2-1, but the Moscow native broke back Canas to love in the eighth game and level at 4-4.

Two disputed calls in the final tie-break, one of which would have given Canas a set point, kept Safin out of trouble to finally close the game 7-5.

Safin recognised later he was lucky:

"I understand he can be unhappy because the calls went my way.

"In the second set, I let him break and didn't really serve well. I was getting a little bit angry at myself because I knew it was really important to hold my serve. So I tried my best, got into a tiebreak. Two close calls, and basically that was it. But the tiebreak is a lottery. It's not who is holding, who doesn't make any mistakes, it's who takes risks".

Safin has now the chance of equaling Boris Becker's record of three Paris Indoors titles.