Top seed Fish squeaks into Delray Beach semis
Tennis newsMardy Fish of the United States pipped Florent Serra of France 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4) to continue his quest to become the first top seed to win the Delray Beach International on Friday.
No top seed has won the tournament in its 16-year history. Five previous top seeds have reached the final.
Except for exchanging service breaks in the second and third games of the second set, Fish and sixth-seeded Serra held to form to force the outcome to two tiebreakers.
In the semifinals, Fish will meet another Frenchman, seventh-seeded Jeremy Chardy.
“I know he’s a young player and he’s certainly talented,” said Fish, who has never even seen Chardy play. “And I know he’s had some great wins.”
Chardy edged Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 7-6 (7), 7-6 (3) in the quarterfinals to move a step closer to his second final this month. He reach his first career final in Johannesburg.
He blew a 5-2 lead in the first set but Baghdatis forced a tiebreaker. At 7-7, Baghdatis double-faulted and smacked a backhand wide to surrender the set.
Baghdatis erred early on in the second-set tiebreaker. He netted a forehand to fall behind 3-2 then netted a backhand to give Chardy his first match point at 6-2.
Baghdatis saved the first match point with an ace but Chardy took control of the second match point on his own serve with a forehand volley that forced Baghdatis into another error.
“I think I played well for the whole match,” Chardy said. “It was tough but I played very well in the tiebreakers.”
The other semifinal features unseeded players Christophe Rochus of Belgium and Evgeny Korolev of Russia.
Rochus beat 2000 champion Stefan Koubek of Austria 6-3, 7-6 (7) for the first time in five matches to reach his first semifinals in three years. He was 5-2 down in the second.
“I’m really happy because I’ve never beaten him before,” Rochus said. “I lost four times. He has the kind of game I don’t like to play.
“But I’m playing really good for the moment.”
Rochus broke serve in the second and fourth games to secure the first set, but fell behind 5-2 in the second set before rebounding.
Korolev, a qualifier ranked 105th, downed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 6-2, 6-2 in 56 minutes.
“I’m looking forward to tomorrow and, hopefully, I can be even better,” Korolev said. “I’m very happy with where I am right now. I’m happy with the way I’m playing.”
Saturday, February 28th, 2009 at 9:15 pm and is filed under Tennis news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
