Argentina advanced to the World Team Cup final by beating the US on Thursday.
The other finalist was to be decided yesterday between Germany, Serbia, Russia and Spain.
Juan Monaco started off Argentina by defeating Mardy Fish 7-6 (4), 7-5, then Juan Ignacio Chela beat John Isner 6-1, 7-6 (1) for an unassailable 2-0 lead in the best-of-three tie.
Photo: EPA
Fish held opportunities in each set, but Monaco was able to hold off the challenge.
In the opening set, Fish immediately recovered a break to level at 3-3 and then held four set points at 5-4. In the second set and following four successive breaks of serve, Fish held two break points to lead 4-3 and another to lead 6-5, before Monaco broke for the match and claimed victory on his third match point.
“I had set points in the first set and obviously a lot of chances in the second so it’s just a match that didn’t go my way,” Fish said. “Playing someone like Monaco on clay is always going to be a tough test, but I’ve played two singles matches, two doubles matches, and it’s great preparation for the French [Open, which starts on Sunday].”
Photo: EPA
Isner never looked comfortable against Chela in the opening set and he faced an uphill task after dropping his serve as early as the third game. Further breaks for 4-1 and 6-1 followed.
Isner offered greater resistance in the second set and he held break point at 3-3 and 4-4, but managed to salvage just one point in the tiebreaker.
The winner of the Blue Group was to be decided yesterday, with four teams still in contention.
With a singles and a doubles to be played by each team, Germany and Serbia enter the final day of the round-robin with 1-0 leads.
Philipp Petzschner put Germany ahead with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Russia’s Igor Andreev, and Serbia held an advantage over Spain after Viktor Troicki beat Marcel Granollers 6-4, 6-4.
WTA BRUSSELS
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China’s Peng Shuai has shrugged off her first-round defeats in Madrid and Rome to reach the Brussels Open semi-finals where she was to tackle world No. 2 Vera Zvonareva yesterday for a place in the final.
Peng, the eighth seed, enjoyed a 6-2, 6-4 win over Sweden’s Sofia Arvidsson in Thursday’s quarter-finals, winning the first set in 28 minutes then rallying from 1-3 to close out her opponent.
“I’m happy,” Peng said. “I won and lost against Sofia before, so I knew how she played and knew she was very tough. She hits the ball hard so I had to handle her power and try to control the rallies when I could, and make her move too. I was a little bit tight when she broke me in the second set, but I’m happy I won.”
Second seed Zvonareva took just 47 minutes to cruise to a 6-0, 6-1 win over Romanian seventh seed Alexandra Dulgheru.
Zvonareva dominates Peng in their head-to-head series, 7-0.
The other semi-final was to be an all-star match-up between the world No. 1 Caroline Wozniacki and French Open -champion Francesca Schiavone. Top seed Wozniacki reached the last four when Belgian opponent Yanina Wickmayer retired after two games with a low back injury, while Schiavone saw off Japan’s Ayumi Morita 6-2, 6-3.
“To see Yanina hurting on the other side with Roland Garros coming up next week, it’s not fun to win that way,” Wozniacki said. “But I’m looking forward to the semi-finals now. Francesca will be a good challenge for me.”
WTA STRASBOURG
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French top seed Marion Bartoli won through to her first red clay semi-final in four years on Thursday when she beat Czech player Lucie Hradecka 6-2, 6-3 in the Strasbourg event.
Standing between the top seed and her first clay final since Prague in 2007 is Spanish seventh seed Anabel Medina Garrigues, a three-time champion here, who put out Croatia’s Mirjana Lucic 6-4, 6-4.
Qualifier Lucic, 29, was playing her first WTA quarter-final since she went all the way to the semi-finals at Wimbledon in 1999. Yesterday’s other semi-final was to pit German second seed Andrea Petkovic against Daniela Hantuchova, the Slovak sixth seed.
Petkovic defeated Russian fifth seed Maria Kirilenko 6-4, 6-3, while Hantuchova knocked out fourth seeded Russian Nadia Petrova 6-4, 6-2.
ATP NICE
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Spanish top seed David Ferrer was knocked out of the Nice ATP claycourt event on Thursday, going down 6-4, 1-6, 7-5 to Ukraine’s Alexandr Dolgopolov in the quarter-finals.
The 22-year-old Ukrainian had been beaten by Ferrer three times previously, including in the Acapulco semi-finals earlier this year, but he gained revenge with victory in one hour and 52 minutes.
Dolgopolov was to face Victor Hanescu in the semi-finals yesterday after the Romanian went through courtesy of Dutch lucky loser Robin Haase pulling out with an ankle injury with the score at 6-2, 2-0.
World No. 12 Nicolas Almagro cruised past fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar 6-1, 6-4 and was to Czech second seed Tomas Berdych who dismissed Latvian wild card Ernests Gulbis 6-1, 6-4, saying it was “harder than it looked.”
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