MONTREAL (Reuters) - Russian Dinara Safina battled to a 6-0 2-6 6-3 win over Victoria Azarenka on Saturday to reach the final of the Montreal Cup.

Seventh seeded Safina, bidding for back-to-back titles after winning in Los Angeles last week, will meet Dominika Cibulkova in Sunday's final after the unseeded Slovakian rallied past 10th seeded Frenchwoman Marion Bartoli 4-6 6-4 6-3.

After a three-hour rain delay, Safina raced through the opening set in just 22 minutes and was 1-0 up in the second before her Belarusian opponent started firing back.

Azarenka swept through the next four games to surge ahead 4-1 on her way to levelling the match.

However, the momentum swung back in favour of Safina in the third, the 22-year-old Russian breaking in the fourth and sixth games to seize control 5-1.

After another slight wobble, Safina, who reached her fifth final in six events, steadied herself to close out the contest with an ace.

"I just slowed down a little bit and let her play more aggressive, it was my mistake to let her back into the match," Safina told reporters.

"I just said to myself if I want to stay in the tournament you have to push yourself harder and be more aggressive and that's what I did and I'm happy I could turn the third set around."

'REALLY MAD'

Cibulkova, who will be bidding for her first WTA career title against Safina, was also made to work a little overtime after her semi-final was hit by two rain delays and took more than seven hours to complete.

After taking the first set 6-4 and leading 2-1 in the second when rain swept across Montreal, Bartoli took a nap during one delay and never appeared fully awake when the match resumed as 19-year-old Slovak took the next two sets.

"It really helped me that it started to rain because I went to the locker room and I talked to my coach. It wasn't easy to talk to him because he was really mad," said Cibulkova.

"Winning my first title is really very far yet. It's still one match. You know, I'm so excited about this, about my game, that I'm in the final of a Tier I for my first time."

(Writing by Steve Keating in Toronto; Editing by Peter Rutherford)