Bethanie Mattek-Sands of the United States defeated third-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia at the Malaysian Open to reach her first WTA singles final in two years.

Mattek-Sands won the first set 6-4 Saturday before the semifinal match was suspended for an hour because of rain. When play resumed the wild card quickly took the second set 6-1 to set up a final against Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic.

The 127th-ranked Pliskova needed only 46 minutes to defeat fourth-seeded Ayumi Morita 6-0, 6-2 of Japan to reach her first WTA final.