Robredo through to semis; second seed Ancic upset by Koubek

Mumbai, Sep 29 (UNI) Top seed Tommy Robredo of Spain put up a superb display of tennis to decimate Ramon Delgado of Paraguay 6-2, 7-6 (1) to romp into the semis of the 3,80,000 dollar Kingfisher Airlines Open tennis tournament at the CCI hard courts here today.

Robredo, playing the last match of the day on centre court, did not waste time in proving his superiority over his opponent and Delgado, before he knew what had hit him, was down a set at 6-2.

Delgado, however slowly managed to survive the onslaught and went on serve with the world number 7 till 2-2 in the second set. Robredo then got the all important break in the fifth game of the second set to go up 3-2, only to see the Paraguan come back with a return break in the eighth game to tie the second set at 4-4.

Delgado then took the set into the tie-breaker. However, Robredo upped his game in the tie-breaker to race to a 4-0 lead before closing out the tie-breaker at 7-1 and with it the match.

Earlier, in the other quarterfinals, Stefan Koubek of Austria caused the biggest upset beating the second seed Mario Ancic in three sets at 3-6, 6-4, 6-3 and booked a place in the semis where he will take on the number three seed Tomas Berydch of the Czech Republic who beat the challenge of German Bjorn Phaus at 6-3, 7-5.

In the other semifinal, Robredo will meet the fourth seed Russian Dmitry Trusunov who overcame a gritty challenge from qualifier James Auckland of Britain before prevailing in three sets at 3-6, 6-3, 6-4.

Results: Mens singles quarterfinals: (1) T Roberdo (ESP) bt Ramon Delgado (Par) 6-2, 7-6 (1); (4) Dmitry Tursunov (Rus) bt James Auckland (Bri) 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; (3) Tomas Berydch (Cze) bt Bjorn Phaus (Ger) 6-3, 7-5, Stefan Koubek (Aut) bt (2) Mario Ancic (Cro) 3-6, 6-4, 6-3.

Semifinal line up: T Robredo vs Dmitry Tursunov; Stefan Koubek vs Tomas Berydch.

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