ST. POLTEN, Austria (Ticker) -- For the second time in 13 days, Chile's Marcelo Rios will meet Argentina's Mariano Zabaleta in the final of a claycourt tennis tournament. Rios, the second seed and defending champion, and Zabaleta, seeded fifth, each had to win two matches today in the rain-plagued $400,000 International Raiffeisen Grand Prix event to set up their meeting on Saturday. In the semifinals, Rios clubbed sixth-seeded Moroccan Younes El Aynaoui, 6-1, 6-3, while Zabaleta knocked off top seed and world No. 1 Yevgeny Kafelnikov of Russia, 7-5, 6-3. Earlier, Rios completed a 6-4, 6-0 rout of Austrian wild card Stefan Koubek, while Zabaleta claimed a 6-2, 4-6, 6-3 victory over fourth-seeded Spaniard Francisco Clavet. The 23-year-old Rios, a two-time winner of this event, held a 5-3 lead in the first set before the rains came on Thursday to suspend his match and postpone the Zabaleta-Clavet affair. Kafelnikov blasted Austrian qualifier Markus Hipfl, 6-2, 6-2, earlier in the day in a match postponed by Thursday's rain. In one of the year's most entertaining matches, Rios scored a 6-7 (5-7), 7-5, 5-7, 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 victory over Zabaleta to win the German Open and $361,000 on May 9. That was a Super 9 event, meaning the final was best of five sets. Saturday's final here, which is worth $57,000, is the standard best-of-three. This tournament ends on Saturday because it is a tuneup for the French Open, which begins on Monday. The French Open is the second Grand Slam tournament of the year. Kafelnikov won the Australian Open in January. Rios, a former No. 1, has gotten his game back in top form and improved his 1999 record on clay to 19-4. One of those losses was a first-round defeat to David Prinosil in last week's Italian Open. But before the German Open, he reached the final of the Monte Carlo Open, retiring in the second set against Gustavo Kuerten. Zabaleta, 21, has been playing the best tennis of his career. In addition to reaching the finals of the German Open, he reached the BMW Open semifinals the week before and lost to countryman Franco Squillari. His only ATP Tour title came last year in Bogota. Kafelnikov will not come away with the title here but at least was able to get his game somewhat on track. He made the quarterfinals for the first time in more than three months and posted his best result on clay in more than a year by making the semifinals. The French Open top seed, Kafelnikov had not played in a quarterfinal since losing to Thomas Johansson at the Guardian Direct Cup in London in late February. That loss started a string of seven straight ATP Tour match defeats, although he posted a pair of match victories in Russia's first-round Davis Cup tie against Germany during the slide. He won the prior event, the ABN/AMRO World Tennis Carpet Tournament, for his last semifinal showing before today. Kafelnikov, 25, remained No. 1 in the world when Australia's Patrick Rafter lost in the final of the Italian Open on Sunday. The Russian ended his skid last week in the first round at Rome. He beat Chris Woodruff and countryman Marat Safin before falling to Kuerten, the eventual champion. He captured his second career Grand Slam title at the Australian Open in January and claimed his second crown of the year at Rotterdam.  