Saturday November 7, 2009
Briton cruises past Montanes in Valencia, Stepanek too crafty in Basel
VALENCIA: Top seed Andy Murray gave Spaniard Albert Montanes a 6-4, 6-2 mauling in the quarter-finals of the Valencia Open yesterday as the Briton continued his comeback from a wrist injury.
The world number four, who before this week had not played on the ATP tour since September’s US Open, broke the Montanes serve four times to set up a semi-final on Saturday against Fernando Verdasco or Tommy Robredo.
Russian Mikhail Youzhny earlier maintained his dominance over Gilles Simon, beating the French fifth seed 6-4 6-4 for his fifth victory in five meetings between the pair and a place in the last four.
Simon’s defeat all but ended his hopes of securing a place at the World Tour Finals in London later this month.
Worthy winners: Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray, Juan Martin del Potro and Andy Roddick have all qualified for the Nov 22-29 season-ending event.
Valencia second seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia and fourth-seeded Spaniard Verdasco occupy the remaining two spots and play their quarters against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Robredo respectively later on Friday.
BASEL: Radek Stepanek dimmed the qualifying hopes of Marin Cilic for a last-gasp spot in the season-ending World Tour Finals with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 upset in the quarter-finals of the Swiss Indoors yesterday.
Croatia’s Cilic stands provisional 12th in the points race as he fights for one of two slots available in the eight-man field.
Radek Stepanek stunned Marin Cilic to enter the Swiss Open semi-finals. — AFP But after a promising start with a winning first set, Cilic fell victim to the crafty court-work which has made his 30-year-old Czech opponent such a threat.
The winner will await the result of the match between second seed Novak Djokovic of Serbia and Swiss sixth seed Stanislas Wawrinka.
At the top of the draw at the St Jakobshalle, two more Swiss – led by three-time champion and hometown hero Roger Federer – figure in the other quarter-finals.
Stepanek, playing Basel for the first time, completed his turnaround campaign in two hours, overcoming ten aces from Cilic and breaking on all four of his opportunities.
Cilic played the final last week in Vienna and was hoping for a running start this week heading into the wind-up Paris Masters from Sunday at the Bercy arena, last event of the ATP regular season.
Stepanek now stands 44-18 during the season in which he earned third and fourth ATP titles of his career in Brisbane and San Jose in the first two months of the year.
Cilic, 21, is still riding the best season of his young career, 46-20 with two titles. — Reuters
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