DUBAI, Feb 28: Jiri Novak reached his third Dubai Open semifinal on Friday by overcoming sixth seed Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands 6-4 6-4.

The third seeded Czech will next face unseeded Tommy Robredo, who beat Feliciano Lopez 6-7 6-3 6-4 in an all-Spanish battle.

Novak, a semifinalist in 1997 and 2002, made a perfect start by breaking Schalken’s serve to love in the opening game. That was enough to decide the first set and it was the Czech who also held the edge in the second.

He netted a backhand return on a break point in the opening game, but then broke to lead 3-2 with a winning forehand.

Schalken earned his only break of serve to level at 3-3 before netting a forehand to give Novak another break and a decisive 4-3 lead.

“It wasn’t very nice tennis because of the conditions — the sunshine, and it was so windy and it was very difficult to play,” said the Czech after his victory.

“I was trying to hold my serve and I was lucky because I made a break in the first game and that gave me confidence. I was a little bit lucky, and Sjeng was making a lot of mistakes from the baseline because he doesn’t like the wind.”

Lopez also opened his challenge well, hitting three aces in the first game. He fired a 204-kph (126mph) serve and followed up with a winning volley to save the only break point of the set at 3-3.

But after claiming the tiebreak, Lopez began to let some costly errors swing the match in Robredo’s favour. A double-fault gave Robredo a 2-0 lead, and another double-fault gave Robredo a point for a second break at 4-1.

Lopez escaped on that occasion, but he then dropped his serve to love to give Robredo a 2-1 lead in the third set, and although he held off two more break points at 3-1 he was unable to turn the match around.

Results of quarterfinals (prefix number denotes seeding):

Tommy Robredo (Spain) beat Feliciano Lopez (Spain) 6-7 (4-7) 6-3 6-4; 3-Jiri Novak (Czech Republic) beat 6-Sjeng Schalken (Netherlands) 6-4 6-4; 1-Roger Federer (Switzerland) beat Hicham Arazi (Morocco) 7-5 6-3

Playing later 5-Rainer Schuettler (Germany) v Ivan Ljubicic (Croatia)—Reuters