Andy Roddick, playing with a new lease of life, caused his second successive upset to reach the final of the Dubai Open on Friday when he added Novak Djokovic's scalp to his victory over Rafael Nadal.
The former world No. 1 from the US, now seeded sixth, scored a tense and tenaciously chiselled out 7-6 (7/5), 6-3 victory over Djokovic, the third-seeded Australian Open champion from Serbia.
It followed another straight sets win on Thursday over Nadal, the second-seeded French Open champion from Spain.
PHOTO: AFP
The match hinged on one point in the tie-breaker and one break of serve in the second set, and might have taken a different course but for a mix-up two points from the end of the first set.
The umpire called a Roddick ace as a let, and repeated the call, but both players changed sides anyway, ready for the next point.
This decided the umpire to allow himself to be over-ruled, and he called the score as 6-4 and set point to Roddick, instead of 5-4, first serve.
Most people assumed both players had disagreed with the call, and that Djokovic was sportingly acknowledging it.
Afterwards however each of them claimed they had not heard the let call.
"The umpire is supposed to speak loud, not as though he were speaking to a mouse," Djokovic said. "There are 10,000 people in there and I didn't hear it. It was an important point."
Inevitably it was suggested to Roddick that his surge in form might have been related to last week's split with Jimmy Connors, the legendary former player who had been his coach for the last year and a half.
"I don't know if this week is about Jimmy. I talked to him last night and he had a lot of things to say," Roddick said. "But for a long time it has been John [Roddick, his brother], Doug [Spreen] and me on the road. It was nice hearing his voice, but the grit of it was John, Doug and me."
In the final, Roddick will face Feliciano Lopez, the enigmatic Spaniard who had previously won only one match in five months, but who now completed his third victory over a top 10 player in a week.
Lopez made a last ditch come-back from 3-5 down to snatch an audacious 6-4, 4-6, 7-5 victory over Nikolay Davydenko, the world No. 5 from Russia.
Nor was it a coincidence that Lopez should return to such spectacular form here -- it is the same place where the first of his four finals happened, four years ago.
■ CANAS FORGES AHEAD
AFP, LAS VEGAS
Fourth seeded Argentine Guillermo Canas rolled over Amer Delic 6-4, 6-4 in the quarter-finals of the ATP Las Vegas tournament, putting an end to a string of upsets.
Canas advanced to his first semi-final of the season with the straight-sets win on Friday.
The world No. 20, Canas took advantage of 29 unforced errors and easily dispatched of the 126th-ranked American Delic.
Canas next will face the US' Sam Querrey, who advanced with a 7-5, 6-2 victory over Frenchman Julien Benneteau.
■ WILLIAMS VS WILLIAMS
AFP, BANGALORE, INDIA
Serena and Venus Williams were to clash in the Bangalore Open semi-finals yesterday with their family rivalry tied at seven wins each in their 14 career meetings.
The sisters, playing for the first time on Indian soil, were excited over their semi-final showdown.
Second seed Venus brushed aside Vera Zvonareva of Russia 6-4, 6-3 in her quarter-final before her sister Serena, seeded third, crushed another Russian Anastasia Rodionova 6-1, 6-4.
Meanwhile, Yan Zi of China upset world No. 4 Jelena Jankovic of Serbia in three sets to storm into the semi-finals.
Yan, ranked 54th in the world, won 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 as the top-seeded Jankovic struggled with a shoulder and neck injury during the third set of the quarter-final match.
Yan, looking for her second career title, was to take on fourth seed Patty Schnyder of Switzerland in yesterday's semi-final.
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