Ivan Ljubicic edged No. 7 seed Joachim Johansson in three sets Friday to reach the semifinals in the US$3 million Madrid Masters.
The unseeded Croatian, who knocked out top seed Tim Henman in the third round, won 7-6 (2), 6-7 (1), 7-6 (3) before a sparse crowd at the Rockodromo Arena.
PHOTO: EPA
In today's semifinals, Ljubicic will play David Nalbandian. The fourth-seed from Argentina beat American Taylor Dent 7-6 (4), 6-3.
PHOTO: EPA
Nalbandian rallied from 1-4 in the first set to prevail in the tiebreak. In the second set, Nalbandian broke at love for a 5-3 lead and then held serve, closing out the match with a lob.
Dent was playing the first quarterfinal of his career in an ATP Masters Series event.
Nalbandian has battled back from ankle, abdominal and thigh injuries this season to stand among the top 10 in both the the ATP Race and Entry Rankings after reaching the quarterfinals in three of his last four tournaments.
Second-seeded Andre Agassi, who won the inaugural Madrid Masters in 2002 but didn't play last year, also reached the semifinals by beating Tommy Robredo, the last Spanish hopeful remaining, 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-2.
Agassi will next play the winner of the last quarterfinal between No. 3 seed Marat Safin of Russia and Peru's Luis Horna.
Johansson, a Swede who is a candidate for ATP Newcomer of the Year honors, ended his match with a double fault after Ljubicic came back from a 3-2 deficit in the tiebreak.
"He finished with a double fault, which is maybe a trademark of our match, that everything is decided by serve," Ljubicic said. "But I felt like, as the match was going close to finish, I was winning more points on his serve than he was on mine. So that gave me extra confidence in the third tiebreak.
"After 2-0 up, I lost three points in a row, but I still felt like I had my chances because he wasn't hitting that many winners as he was in the second set."
Neither player was broken during the quarterfinal, which lasted 2 hours and 41 minutes.
Ljubicic fired 26 aces past Johansson. In his last four service games, Ljubicic lost only two points and won two games at love. Johansson finished with 15 aces.
He had a break point in the fourth game of the decisive set, but Johansson responded with an ace and held to 2-2. That was the only break point in the set.
Johansson, trying to advance to his first Masters Series semifinal, was not broken in any of his three matches in Madrid. He won both previous matches in straight sets.
The 25-year-old Monte Carlo resident now has a career-high 34 match wins of the season. He reached his first career Masters Series semifinal in Hamburg, losing to Guillermo Coria of Argentina on clay.
Swisscom Challenge
Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova beat Venus Williams 6-3, 6-4 in the Swisscom Challenge quarterfinals on Friday, extending her winning streak to 11 matches.
The fourth-seeded Russian advanced to a semifinal meeting against compatriot and No. 3 seed Elena Dementieva, who battled past No. 9 Ai Sugiyama of Japan 6-1, 5-7, 7-5.
Sharapova is seeking her third straight title after having won tournaments in Seoul and Tokyo. She has lost only one set in her last three tournaments.
The seventh-seeded Williams broke Sharapova on her opening serve, but the 17-year-old Russian broke Williams twice to take the first set. In the second, Sharapova broke for a 4-3 lead and served for the match at 5-4. Williams had a break point but couldn't convert, and Sharapova recovered with two unreturnable serves to complete the victory in their first match.
In the other semifinal, local favorite Patty Schnyder will face Olympic bronze medallist Alicia Molik of Australia.
Tenth-seed Schnyder defeated Argentina's Paola Suarez 6-2, 3-6, 6-4 while Molik routed No. 8 Nadia Petrova of Russia 6-3, 6-1.
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