October 25, 2003	Saturday	Sha’aban 28, 1424

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BASEL (Switzerland), Oct 24: Third-seed Guillermo Coria and big-serving Croatian Ivan Ljubicic set up a semifinal showdown in the Swiss Indoors after quarter-final victories on Friday.

Argentine Coria breezed to a comfortable 6-1 6-2 win over Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, while Ljubicic overcame Ecuador’s Nicolas Lapentti 2-6 6-2 6-3.

Coria, playing in his first tournament since the U.S. Open, comfortably took the opening set against Lopez, before the Spaniard lost his form in the second as Coria won the final three games.

Ljubicic added to his scalp of second seed and home favourite Roger Federer on Thursday by coming from a set down to beat Lapentti.

The 24-year-old Croat secured a semi-final berth for the fourth time this season after previous final four appearances in Milan, Dubai and Bangkok as Lapentti failed to live with Ljubicic’s big serve.

Results: (prefix number denotes seeding):

Quarterfinals: 4-David Nalbandian (Argentina) beat Tim Henman (Britain) 6-2 6-4; 3-Guillermo Coria (Argentina) beat Feliciano Lopez (Spain) 6-1 6-2; Ivan Ljubicic (Croatia) beat Nicolas Lapentti (Ecuador) 2-6 6-2 6-3

FISH JUSTIFIES STATUS

STOCKHOLM: American Mardy Fish justified his status as the only seed left in the Stockholm Open by overcoming a determined challenge from Croatia’s Mario Ancic in a 6-4 6-7 7-6 quarter-final victory on Friday.

The fifth-seeded American should have wrapped up the match in two sets after winning the first set 6-4 and taking a 6-3 lead in the second set tie-break, but he blew his first match point on a long forehand and then double faulted.

Let off the hook, 19-year-old Ancic fired an ace past him to level the score at 6-6 and went on to win the tiebreak 9-7 taking the match into a deciding set.

The final set went with serve until the tiebreak, although Ancic had to save another match point on his serve at 5-4 down.

The young Croatian grabbed the initiative with a mini-break for a 3-0 lead in the tiebreak, a but a poor volley let the American back into the match at 3-3.

Ancic won the next point but Fish rattled off the following four to clinch the match.

Results:

Quarterfinals: Thomas Enqvist (SWE) bt Robby Ginepri (USA) 6-3, 6-4; Rolf Soderling (SWE) bt Jonas Bjorkman (SWE) 6-4, 6-3; Mardy Fish (USA x5) bt Mario Ancic (CRO) 6-4, 6-7 (7/9), 7-6 (7/4)

ST PETERSBURG: Quarter-final results from the $975,000 ATP St Petersburg Open tennis tournament on Friday. 1-Rainer Schuettler (Germany) beat Mikhail Youzhny (Russia) 6-3 6-3; Sargis Sargsian (Armenia) beat Lars Burgsmuller (Germany) 6-3 6-1; Alex Corretja (Spain) beat 2-Sebastien Grosjean (France) 4-6 6-2 7-6 (7-5); 3-Gustavo Kuerten (Brazil) beat 6-Vincent Spadea (U.S.) 6-4 7-6 (7-4).—Reuters/AFP