MADRID, Oct 18: Roger Federer set up a rerun of his US Open final against Andy Murray by dispatching rising Argentine Juan Martin del Potro 6-3, 6-3 in the Madrid Masters quarter-finals on Friday.
Top seed Rafael Nadal also progressed with a combative 6-4, 6-4 win over fellow Spaniard Feliciano Lopez. He will face Frenchman Gilles Simon who took two hours and 14 minutes to see off the towering Croat Ivo Karlovic 7-6, 4-6, 7-6.
Earlier, world No 2 Federer aggressively picked off 20-year-old Del Potro’s second serves, breaking his rhythm and forcing him into errors.
Murray showed why he could be among those to challenge the established order at the top of the rankings by playing one of his best matches of the season to outclass Gael Monfils of France 6-2, 6-2.
The 21-year-old Briton was a bundle of energy and displayed little sign of the knee discomfort that troubled him on Thursday.
The fourth-ranked Murray swapped early breaks but soon started to make Monfils hurry and broke twice more to take the first set.
However, it was not until midway through the second set the match burst into life.
Murray scampered after everything Monfils threw at him, sent a pair of delicate lobs over his 6-foot-4-inch opponent and at one point flashed a crosscourt winner that left the athletic Frenchman sprawled on the ground. At 4-1 down Monfils hung his head in disbelief as his opponent reached a smash and blasted a winner down the line before breaking to love.
The Frenchman later double faulted to gift Murray victory.
Against Lopez, Nadal broke in the second set with a spectacular winner, racing across the back of the court to drill a passing shot down the line that brought the home crowd to their feet.
The world No 1 did not seem to be suffering from the shoulder injury his trainer and uncle Toni Nadal had said he was carrying.
If Nadal makes the final he will secure his place as the world No 1 for the end of the year.
Friday’s results (prefix number denotes seeding):
Quarter-finals: Gilles Simon (France) bt 14-Ivo Karlovic (Croatia) 7-6 (7-1), 4-6, 7-6 (7-2); 1-Rafael Nadal (Spain) bt Feliciano Lopez (Spain) 6-4, 6-4; 2-Roger Federer (Switzerland) bt 9-Juan Martin Del Potro (Argentina) 6-3, 6-3; 4-Andy Murray (Britain) bt Gael Monfils (France) 6-2, 6-2.
VENUS IN LAST FOUR
ZURICH: Venus Williams remained on course for a strong end to an inconsistent season when the American beat Italy’s Francesca Schiavone 6-3, 6-3 to reach the Zurich Open semi-finals on Friday.
Third-seeded Williams will face Serbian second seed Ana Ivanovic on Saturday after the world No 4 saw off Czech qualifier Petra Kvitova 6-1, 6-4.
Williams has won just one title this season – albeit at Wimbledon – and is still looking to gain enough points this week to join younger sister Serena at the season-ending WTA Championships.
Following the second round exits of her nearest rivals for a place, Vera Zvonareva and Agnieszka Radwanska, the former world No 1 took another big step towards the Doha finale by maintaining her perfect record against the world No 23.
The opening set was a messy affair with Williams eventually coming out on top of a five-game run in which both women failed to hold serve.
The American finally found her rhythm when it counted, serving out to love to end the sequence and seal the set.
In the second set Williams was much more convincing, varying her play nicely to break her opponent twice and take a 4-1 lead.
Schiavone, who had lost all four previous encounters with Williams, briefly threatened to fight back after grabbing a break to make the score 4-2 but slipped up again while serving to stay in the match at 5-3 down.
Ivanovic owed a good deal of her success on Friday to some terrible serving on the part of her teenage opponent.
Kvitova, ranked 57th in the world, double faulted five times in her second service game to hand the Serb a 3-1 lead.
That formed part of an eight-game winning streak that saw Ivanovic romp through the first set and go 3-0 up in the second.
The French Open winner then suffered some wobbles of her own, inexplicably dropping her next three service games.
Kvitova was unable to capitalise however, twice more failing to hold her own serve in a scrappy end to the match.
The other semi-final will involve two unseeded players with Italy’s Flavia Pennetta taking on Spain’s Anabel Medina Garrigues.
Pennetta, who beat world No 1 Jelena Jankovic in the second round, saw off Slovenia’s Katarina Srebotnik 7-5, 6-2 in the quarter-finals. Garrigues benefited from a shoulder injury sustained by her Belarussian opponent Victoria Azarenka who won the first set 6-4 but retired after losing the second 6-3.
Results:
Quarter-finals: 2-Ana Ivanovic (Serbia) bt Petra Kvitova (Czech Republic) 6-1, 6-4; 3-Venus Williams (US) bt Francesca Schiavone (Italy) 6-3, 6-3; Anabel Medina Garrigues (Spain) bt Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) 4-6, 6-3 – Azarenka retired; Flavia Pennetta (Italy) bt Katarina Srebotnik (Slovenia) 7-5, 6-2.
—Reuters
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