Second seed Milos Raonic will face seventh seed Joao Sousa in the St. Petersburg Open final after defeating Roberto Bautista Agut 6-2, 7-6(2) in the semi-finals on Saturday.

Raonic is chasing his seventh ATP World Tour trophy and takes a 2-0 FedEx ATP Head2Head lead over Sousa into Sunday’s title match, beating the Portuguese most recently in Monte-Carlo earlier this year.

In his second meeting with Bautista Agut, Raonic fired 19 aces and broke serve twice as he claimed victory in 88 minutes.

The Canadian will contest his first ATP World Tour final since finishing runner-up to Roger Federer in Brisbane at the start of the year. He has a 6-8 record in ATP World Tour finals.

The 24-year-old Raonic is still in with an outside chance of qualifying for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals, having started the week 1,175 points behind eighth-placed David Ferrer in the Emirates ATP Race To London.

Seventh seed Sousa found the winning formula against Dominic Thiem as he beat the Austrian for the first time in four attempts to reach the final with a 6-4, 7-6(5) victory.

Sousa, who most recently lost to Thiem in the Umag final in July, made a fast start to the semi-final, racing into a 4-0 lead. Thiem recouped one of the breaks and had the chance to level as Sousa served for the first set at 5-4, but the Portuguese held on to take the opener.

Thiem earned a 4-2 lead in the second set as he nailed a backhand drive down the line, but his break advantage was immediately cancelled out as Sousa hit back. The 26-year-old Sousa then prevailed in the subsequent tie-break after one hour and 39 minutes.

“It’s good to be in another final,” said Sousa. “That’s what we work for, and for victories like this against a good player. I’ve played him three times before and lost all of them. So this was a good win for me and I’m really happy to be in another final.

“It definitely was a good match mentally and I’m really happy with that. I changed my tactics a bit against him. We learned a lot from my other matches against him. Today it was good.”

Sousa will contest his third ATP World Tour final of the year. In addition to finishing runner-up to Thiem in Umag, Sousa was also a finalist in Geneva, losing to Thomaz Bellucci. His lone ATP World Tour title came two years ago in Kuala Lumpur (d. Benneteau).