Andreas Seppi was three points from defeat when he rallied to beat Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania 3-6, 6-2, 7-6 (6) and reach the Zagreb Indoors semi-finals on Friday.
The fifth-seeded Seppi served for the match at 6-5, but won only one point.
Berankis led the tiebreaker 4-1, when Seppi responded by winning five points in a row. The Italian converted his third match point.
Photo: AFP
Berankis won 85 percent of points on his first serve, but only 44 percent on the second, as Seppi responded with his aggressive returns.
Seppi is set to face eighth-seeded Marcel Granollers of Spain, who defeated Igor Sijsling 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.
Granollers hit 11 aces and saved five out of eight break points, keeping serve throughout the third set. Sijsling served to stay in the match at 4-5, and led 40-15 before the Dutchman lost four points in a row.
Third-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain also progressed, beating Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-1, 6-7 (5), 7-5.
Garcia-Lopez led 6-1, 4-1 when he began to unravel. Troicki fought back to send the contest to a third set, but Garcia-Lopez again started well — taking a 3-0 lead. Troicki recovered again, but was broken at 5-6 down.
Garcia-Lopez will face Marcos Baghdatis after the Cypriot rallied to beat Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.
Youzhny opened well, winning the first set easily, but things changed after Baghdatis broke for 4-2 in the second set.
He stepped up the pressure, taking a 5-2 lead in the third set before slowing down. Youzhny nearly leveled the score, but Baghdatis saved a break point before closing out the match.
OPEN SUD DE FRANCE
Defending champion Gael Monfils needed three sets to see off Belgian qualifier Steve Darcis in the Open Sud de France quarter-finals on Friday, winning 4-6, 6-2, 6-3 to set up an all-French semi-final against Richard Gasquet.
Top-seeded Monfils outscored Darcis 10-0 in aces and saved three of four break-point chances.
The fourth-seeded Gasquet had it easier, breaking sixth-seeded Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan’s serve once in each set in a 6-3, 6-4 win. Gasquet is bidding for his third straight Montpellier final, having lost to Monfils last year and winning it in 2013.
Meanwhile, fifth-seeded Jerzy Janowicz of Poland downed No. 2 Gilles Simon of France 6-2, 7-5 to set up a semi-final against No. 7 Joao Sousa of Portugal, who beat No. 3 Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany 7-6 (5), 6-4.
ECUADOR OPEN
Top-seeded Feliciano Lopez of Spain defeated No. 7 Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 4-6, 7-5, 6-1 on Friday to reach the semi-finals of the clay-court tournament.
In other matches, No. 6 Thomas Bellucci of Brazil beat Spain’s Albert Montanes 6-3, 7-6 (6). Bellucci was due to meet No. 8 Victor Estrella Burgos of the Dominican Republic in yesterday’s semi-finals. Estrella Burgos defeated No. 4 Martin Klizan of Slovakia 6-2, 6-2.
The Quito event is the first in a month of ATP and WTA clay-court tournaments across Latin America, all pointing toward the French Open in three months.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
Rafael Nadal on Tuesday lost in straight sets to 31st-ranked Jiri Lehecka in the fourth round at the Madrid Open, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced to the semi-finals in the women’s doubles. Nadal said that he was feeling good about his progress following his latest injury layoff. Nadal called it a “positive week” in every way and said his body held up well. “I was able to play four matches, a couple of tough matches,” Nadal said. “So very positive, winning three matches, playing four matches at the high level of tennis. I enjoyed a lot playing at home. I leave here with