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Pair of Belgians reach the J&S Cup semifinals

Patty Schnyder of Swizerland returns the ball to Justine Henin-Hardenne of Belgium during their quarterfinal match at the J&S Cup in Warsaw on Friday. Henin-Hardenne won 6-1, 6-2. PHOTO: AFP

Kim Clijsters and Justine Henin-Hardenne reached the semifinals of the J&S Cup on Friday, moving closer to a championship match between the two former top-ranked Belgians.

Seventh-seeded Clijsters beat Russia's Elena Bovina 7-6 (4), 6-3, while Henin-Hardenne downed No. 4 Patty Schnyder 6-1, 6-2.

In the other quarterfinals, Ana Ivanovic defeated Nathalie Dechy of France 7-6 (2), 6-4, and No. 2 Svetlana Kuznetsova beat Italy's Silvia Farina Elia 6-3, 6-4.

In today's semis, Klijsters will play Kuznetsova and Henin-Hardenne will face Ivanovic.

The two Belgian stars both recently returned after long injury layoffs. Clijsters won tournaments at Indian Wells and Miami, while Henin-Hardenne won the Charleston title.

Clijsters led Bovina 4-2 in the first set before the Russian rallied to force a tiebreaker. In the second set, Clijsters dropped her serve when leading 4-2, but broke with a forehand winner down the line and served out the match for here 17th straight victory.

"My serve was too inconsistent," Clijsters said. "I was feeling a few aches in my shoulder. I don't know if that was why I wasn't serving as well today."

The unseeded Henin-Hardenne beat Schnyder in an hour.

After dominating the opening set, Henin-Hardenne was broken twice at the start of the second. She broke straight back each time and won five games in a row to close out the match.

Fourth-seeded Tommy Haas withstood 19 aces Friday to beat the Australia's Wayne Arthurs 7-6 (6), 7-6 (5) for a place in the BMW Open semifinals.

Haas will next play fifth-seeded Andrei Pavel, who beat Raemon Sluiter Raemon Sluiter 6-1, 3-6, 6-3.

Top-seeded David Nalbandian cruised past Juan Monaco 6-0, 6-4 to set up a semifinal against Jarkko Nieminen, who rallied to defeat Michal Mertinak 3-6, 6-1, 6-4.

Haas is the only German player to have made it past the first round in the 323,250 euros (US$420,000) event. A finalist in Munich in 2000, he is seeking to become the first home player to win the clay-court event since Michael Stich 11 years ago.

Arthurs saved a break point at 3-3 in the first set, the only time he had trouble on his serve.

A serve-and-volley player whose game is ill-suited for the slow red clay, Arthurs squandered a 4-2 lead in the first tiebreaker.

He used his reach to put away a fierce volley for 5-4, but Haas managed to come back and used a backhand passing shot on his first set point to go one set up.

Arthurs' serve kept him the match but he hit a ball long to give Haas a 3-1 lead in the second tiebreaker and never recovered.

Haas hit a service winner to gain three match points. Arthurs saved two, then put an easy backhand into the net to send the German into the last four.

Carlos Moya of Spain beat France's Paul-Henri Mathieu 6-4, 6-2 to move into the semifinals of the clay-court Estoril Open.

Argentina's Gaston Gaudio also advanced with a 6-2, 6-2 win over Feliciano Lopez.

Tommy Robredo downed Davide Sanguinetti by the same score, and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez made it a trio of Spaniards in the last four by knocking out Juan Antonio Marin 6-1, 2-6, 6-3.

Top-seeded Moya, looking more assured than he did in his three-hour second-round match against Juan Carlos Ferrero, broke Mathieu's serve in the fifth game on his way to taking the first set.

Mathieu had defeated Moya on the hard outdoor surface at the Chennai Open three months ago.

The Frenchman lost his serve on a double fault in the third game of the second set.

French Open champion Gaudio, seeded second, broke his opponent's serve in the opening game of the first set before taking a 5-1 lead. Lopez made 16 unforced errors in the 25-minute set.

In other quarterfinals, fourth-seeded Tommy Robredo had little trouble against Italy's Davide Sanguinetti who, at 32, is the tournament's oldest player.

In the women's tournament, second-seeded Dinara Safina reached the semifinals by beating American Jill Craybas 6-4, 6-2.

Argentina's Gisela Dulko, seeded third, beat ninth-seeded Jie Zheng of China 6-2, 6-1, while fourth-seeded Na Li took less than an hour to overcome Dally Randriantefy of Madagascar, 6-3, 6-1.
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