WINSTON-SALEM: Second seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa beat eighth seed Borna Coric of Croatia 6-2, 7-6 (1) here on Thursday night to advance to the Winston-Salem Open semi-finals.

Anderson, ranked 15th, will face sixth-seeded Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil or Malek Jaziri of Tunisia at the Wake Forest Tennis Center.

Anderson served just 10 aces on Thursday in improving to 6-0 this season in quarter-finals, but he broke the 18-year-old Coric’s serve twice and converted 85 per cent of his first serves in winning the first set.

The two were even on serve in the second set to force the tiebreaker, but Coric misplayed a volley at the net with the score tied 1-1, giving Anderson the lead and beginning a run of six consecutive points to close out the match.

Earlier, Steve Johnson advanced when Taiwan’s Yen-Hsun Lu withdrew because of a back injury.

Lu was hurt late in the third set on Wednesday in his 7-6 (1), 1-6, 7-5 victory over South Korea’s Hyeon Chung. He was treated after the match and on Thursday morning, but the pain and cramping persisted during practice.

Johnson is seeded 13th and the lone American remaining in the US Open tune-up. He will play qualifier Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France, a 4-6, 7-6 (5), 6-2 winner over Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain. Herbert, ranked 140th, reached his first career semi-final.

Winston-Salem: Brazil’s Thomaz Bellucci returns a shot from Malek Jaziri of Tunisia during their quarter-final at the Winston-Salem Open.—AP

Johnson reached his third career semi-final and second this season. The two-time NCAA champion at South California made his last last-four appearance three weeks ago in Washington.

Carreno Busta won the first set after breaking Herbert’s serve, and was serving for the match after getting another break in the second set. But Herbert broke back to even it at 5-5 and went on to win the tiebreaker.

Herbert, a wild-card entrant in next week’s US Open, went on to break Carreno Busta’s serve three times in the third set, and served out the match by winning four consecutive points.

KVITOVA MAKES LAST FOUR

NEW HAVEN: Second-seeded defending champion Petra Kvitova of the Czech Republic beat seventh-seeded Agnieska Radwanska of Poland 7-5, 6-4 to reach the Connecticut Open semi-finals here on Thursday night.

Kvitova, who overcame a 5-3 deficit in the first set, advanced to the semi-finals for the fourth straight year. She also won the event in 2012, then lost to Simona Halep in the 2013 finals.

Kvitova will play Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki. Wozniacki, the tournament champion from 2008-11, routed France’s Caroline Garcia 6-3, 6-0 in the late match.

Wozniacki is 5-4 against Kvitova, winning the most recent meeting last year in Singapore.

Lucky-loser entry Lesia Tsurenko of the Ukraine beat fifth seed Karolina Pliskova of the Czech Republic 6-2, 6-2 in the first quarter-final.

Tsurenko lost in qualifying, but got into the field when the top seed Halep withdrew because of an injury. Tsurenko has yet to lose a set in the tournament.

Tsurenko will face fourth seed Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic. Safarova beat Slovakia’s Dominika Cibulkova 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-5 in a match lasting 2 hours, 56 minutes. —Agencies

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2015

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