Juan Carlos Ferrero comfortably dispatched Russia's Marat Safin to reach the final of the French Open at Roland Garros.

After reaching the semi-finals for the last two years, Ferrero will be delighted to have secured a place in his first-ever Grand Slam final.

The Spaniard's victory sets up a meeting with his compatriot Albert Costa, who beat Alex Corretja in the other semi-final.

Solid serving and some smart groundstrokes paved the way for Ferrero to progress one step further than in his previous two attempts at Roland Garros.

Ferrero started off nervously with a double-fault and being broken in his second service game, but he was soon in his rhythm.

He broke straight back and in the eighth game he took advantage of some good fortune and some poor play by Safin to go a break ahead.

A game later he wrapped up the first set and Safin's play became more and more erratic as the match went on.

The second seed made 78 unforced errors compared to 49 from the Spaniard.

He had major difficulty holding his own serve, with Ferrero earning regular break-points.

And the Russian struggled to keep his temper in check as his frustrations grew as the game wore on.

But when he missed a drop shot to fall behind in the final game, he threw his racket in the air and let out a scream.

"I didn't serve well and in the middle of the match I was a little bit lost," admitted the world number two.

"I didn't know what basically to do. I didn't feel comfortable on court and I couldn't find a solution.

"I couldn't find my game. The guy knows how to play. He's learned a lot and he's just very dangerous."

The 22-year-old Ferrero produced a confident final game to close the match on serve, although he needed two match points to secure the win.