TENNIS – Tomorrow’s ATP Oeiras semi-finals will see top seed Tomas Berdych face Romanian Victor Hanescu and qualifier Daniel Gimeno-Traver take on Argentine Carlos Berlocq. The Czech top seed recovered from a set down against Leonardo Mayer. Carlos Berlocq defeated Milos Raonic. Joshua Bosco
Tomorrow’s ATP Oeiras semi-finals will see top seed Tomas Berdych face Romanian Victor Hanescu and qualifier Daniel Gimeno-Traver take on Argentine Carlos Berlocq.
In the first match of the day Gimeno-Traver stunned fellow countryman, World No.31 Marcel Granollers, defeating him 6-1 6-2 in 74 minutes. The qualifier started the match strongly and, after an everlasting 18 points first game hold, broke his opponent twice to take an early 5-0 lead before closing the first set 6-1.
The second set was no different with Gimeno-Traver breaking Granollers in the opening game and never looking back, claiming a second break in the 7th game and closing the match at the first opportunity to seize the match and his 4th career ATP World Tour 250 semi-final.
His semi-final opponent will be Carlos Berlocq who surprised the Portuguese crowd beating World No.9 Milos Raonic in straight sets, 7-5 6-4. The match started with both players holding their service games quite easily up until 4-4 in the first set, when Berlocq broke Raonic and served on 5-4 but failed to hold on his serve thus bringing the Canadian back in the contest. Raonic, however, failed to take advantage of this opportunity and lost his serve again: this time, serving on 6-5, Berlocq didn’t back out and closed the first set 7-5 in just under 50 minutes.
The second set began with the players exchanging early breaks and then, once again, holding effortlessly on their service games without conceding a single break point until they reached 4-4: Raonic once more failed to hold his serve in the ninth game and again gave Berlocq the opportunity to serve 5-4 up. The Argentine didn’t make the same mistake twice and closed the match with his first match point and booked his spot in the semi-final.
Tomorrow’s match will be the 7th encounter between Gimeno-Traver and Berlocq, all of them played on clay, with the Argentine leading the Head2Head 5-1.
In the top half of the draw World No.6 Tomas Berdych survived a scare to beat qualifier Leonardo Mayer 3-6 6-4 6-4 in a very lopsided match. Berdych started the match by breaking the Argentine and racing to an early 3-1 lead before losing the next 5 games to hand Mayer the first set in just over half an hour.
Berdych lost his first service game in the second set before breaking Mayer twice to win 6-4 and force a decider. The third set was a bit of a rollercoaster: Berdych took an early 2-0 lead but then got broken twice to put Mayer within reach of a win at 4-2, before the Czech took control winning the last four games in a row to close the set and win the match 3-6 6-4 6-4 in 2h 10m.
In the semi-final the Czech will play Victor Hanescu, who defeated Portuguese qualifier Gastao Elias 6-1 7-5. The match began with a photocopy of Gimeno-Traver’s first set: Hanescu broke Elias twice to gain a 5-0 lead, before conceding the Portuguese his first game of the match, and then served to take the set 6-1 in 24 minutes.
The Romanian started the second set in the same fashion, breaking Elias twice to take a 5-1 lead and was probably hoping for an early bath. Elias, however, had other plans and, spurred on by his home crowd, fought back to level the score at 5-5. Hanescu was determined to have the last word and won the last two games to take the match 6-1 7-5.
It will be the second match between Berdych and Hanescu, the only previous meeting dating back to Wimbledon 2008 where the Czech won in four sets.
