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HAMBURG, May 19: Roger Federer had to fight hard to beat David Ferrer and reach the Hamburg Masters semi-finals on Friday, but Rafael Nadal had no such problems as he brushed past Fernando Gonzalez for his 80th successive victory on clay.
Federer looked to be at about the peak of his clay-court game early on against the Spanish 12th seed but a second-set slump meant he was grateful to just scrape home 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
Nadal was a lot more convincing as he broke Chilean fifth seed Gonzalez early in each set on his way to a 6-4, 6-4 victory in one hour, 38 minutes.
If Federer is to win his first Masters Series title of the year he will almost certainly have to beat not just one man from Mallorca but two.
In the semi-finals he will be up against the 30-year-old Carlos Moya, who pulled off a thrilling 7-6, 4-6, 7-5 win over the fast rising Serb Novak Djokovic, seeded fourth and 11 years his junior.
Nadal's prize for another impeccable performance against Gonzalez will be a semi-final against former world No 1 Lleyton Hewitt, who outpunched Spain's Nicolas Almagro to win 6-3, 6-4.
It looks to be heading towards a Federer-Nadal final, although clay-court expert Moya will provide another stern test of how the Swiss is feeling on the surface in the build up to the French Open, starting later this month.
Federer looked pretty comfortable early on. A dazzling start saw him go a set and 4-2 up but his serve then deserted him and he started to play a string of wayward groundstrokes.
He pulled himself together at the start of the third but still needed a big slice of luck to scrape home.
Serving at 3-3 and 30-30, the Swiss saw a scooped forehand hit the top of the net and dribble over. It brought a relieved smile from Federer, while Ferrer threw his racket down in frustration.
Federer duly held and took a decisive 5-3 lead when he converted a fifth break point in Ferrer's next service game.
Moya's surprise victory owed something to the five-and-a-half hours Djokovic had spent on court on Thursday, when he had to win two matches.
The 19-year-old, who has three titles already this season, lost the tiebreak at the end of an untidy first set 7-4 but hit back strongly in the second.
Moya, who won at Roland Garros back in 1998, grabbed a break at the start of the third and calmly withstood everything the exhausted Djokovic could throw at him.
Moya missed one match point in losing his serve at 5-3 but, crucially, he held his next service game and then forced three match points, taking the third of them as Djokovic missed an attempted backhand pass.
Friday’s results (prefix number denotes seeding):
Quarter-finals: 16-Lleyton Hewitt (Australia) beat Nicolas Almagro (Spain) 6-3, 6-4; 2-Rafael Nadal (Spain) beat 5-Fernando Gonzalez (Chile) 6-4, 6-4; Carlos Moya (Spain) beat 4-Novak Djokovic (Serbia) 7-6 (7-4), 4-6, 7-5; 1-Roger Federer (Switzerland) beat 12-David Ferrer (Spain) 6-3, 4-6, 6-3.
ROME: Former world No 1 Serena Williams slid out of the Italian Open following a 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 defeat by Patty Schnyder in the quarter-finals on Friday.
Playing her first tournament since a groin strain forced her to pull out of the Family Circle Cup in Charleston last month, Williams struggled to find her rhythm against the 14th seed and paid the price for an error-strewn performance.
Schnyder's reward will be a semi-final against third seed Jelena Jankovic, who produced an impressive display of baseline hitting to sweep past Elena Dementieva 6-2, 6-1.
In the other half of the draw, second seed Svetlana Kuznetsova also progressed with a 6-1, 6-3 win over fellow Russian Dinara Safina to set up a last four meeting with ninth seed Daniela Hantuchova, who knocked out Anabel Medina Garrigues 7-6, 7-5.
Schnyder had lost six of her previous seven matches against Williams, though her one victory had come on clay, at Charleston in 2002.
Williams started badly, misfiring her shots into the net and tramlines to drop serve in the fourth and sixth games. She lost the first set in just 28 minutes.
Three more forehand errors and a double fault gave Schnyder another break at the start of the second.
From 2-0 down, however, Williams found her range to reel off the next six games level at one set apiece as mistakes crept into Schnyder's game.
Williams saved break points in the first and fifth games of the decider, but started the tiebreak badly, mis-hitting a backhand into the tramlines and then netting a backhand before fighting back to level at 5-5.
A netted forehand, however, gave Schnyder match point, which she converted by whipping a crosscourt winner into the back corner.
Jankovic's win over former French Open finalist Dementieva confirmed her impressive recent form on clay.
The 22-year-old Serb, who has reached at least the quarter-finals at each of her last four claycourt events, dragged the 10th seeded Russian around the court with heavy, angled groundstrokes.
Results:
Quarter-finals: 9-Daniela Hantuchova (Slovakia) beat Anabel Medina (Spain) 7-6 (10-8), 7-5; 2-Svetlana Kuznetsova (Russia) beat 6-Dinara Safina (Russia) 6-1, 6-3; 14-Patty Schnyder (Switzerland) beat 8-Serena Williams (US) 6-3, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5); 3-Jelena Jankovic (Serbia) beat 10-Elena Dementieva (Russia) 6-2 6-1.—Reuters
