Another day, another nail-biter for Andrey Rublev.

The day after saving a matchpoint on the way to breaking Alex de Minaur's battling heart in the quarter-final, the Russian edged Canada's Felix Auger-Aliassime 7-5 4-6 7-6 (7-5) in the semis to reach another Qatar Open final on Friday.

The 10th-ranked Rublev, who'd had to endure de Minaur saving seven match points on Thursday before he finally prevailed in a third-set tiebreak, this time needed four match points to close out No.23 Auger-Aliassime for the sixth time in seven match-ups.

The Doha winner in 2020 and beaten finalist in 2018, Rublev had to withstand 21 aces from the Canadian over the near three-hour match.

"It took everything. It was super tough today," Rublev said.

"He was serving well and I was just saying, 'Okay, I cannot do much, this is one of the best servers on tour. I just need to try to guess and when I have a moment, just go for it.'"

In his 27th career final and first since August, Rublev will play eighth seed Jack Draper.

Brit Draper required a tie-break to get the match back on level terms before showing his class in a 3-6 7-6 (7-2) 6-3 win over Jiri Lehecka, who had eliminated Carlos Alcaraz.