HOUSTON, Nov 20: Marat Safin overpowered Tim Henman 6-2 7-6 on Friday to reach the last four of the Masters Cup, setting the stage for two mouth-watering semifinals involving the world's four top-ranked players.

Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Lleyton Hewitt and Safin, all 24 or under, all current or past world number ones and all with grand slam titles to their credit, will take to the court on Saturday.

It will be the first time the top four seeds have qualified for the semifinals at the season finale since 1990 when Stefan Edberg, Boris Becker, Andre Agassi and Ivan Lendl battled for the title.

World number one and defending champion Federer will face Russian Safin, the form player coming into the $4.45 million showcase event, while hometown favourite Roddick takes on a fired-up Hewitt.

Masters champion in 2001 and 2002, Australian Hewitt booked his spot in the last four earlier in the day with a 6-2 6-1 demolition of French Open champion Gaston Gaudio of Argentina, who had already been eliminated.

In contrast, Safin, the winner of back-to-back Masters Series events in Paris and Madrid, and Henman, the oldest player in the eight-man field and the only one without a title this season, stepped on to the floodlit centre court at the Westside Tennis Club with everything to play for.

Safin, who is coached by Swiss Federer's former mentor Peter Lundgren, wasted no time wrestling control of the first set, breaking Henman on his opening service game.

The big Russian held his own serve and then continued to pressure Henman, taking him to break point again in the next game.

Henman weathered the second Safin storm but continued to struggle with his serve and soon found himself down another break at 5-2 and running out of options.

The 30-year-old Briton raised his game in the second set but was never quite able to penetrate his opponent's defences, Safin fighting off two break points and then overwhelming Henman in the tiebreak 7-2.

In the day's only other match, Roddick completed round-robin play with an unbeaten 3-0 record by blasting his way past Argentina's Guillermo Coria 7-6 6-3 and into the tennis record books.

Playing his first tournament since undergoing shoulder surgery in July and with no chance of advancing, Coria offered up surprising resistance but in the end had no answer to Roddick's power as the hard-hitting American blasted 15 aces to reach a career milestone.

The aces gave Roddick 1,008 this season, joining Goran Ivanisevic and Pete Sampras as the only players to pass 1,000 since the ATP started keeping records in 1991.

Ivanisevic accomplished the feat four times in his career, hitting a record 1,477 aces in 1996. He was also the last to reach the plateau in 1998.

Results:

Singles

Round-robin

Red Group

Lleyton Hewitt (AUS) bt Gaston Gaudio (ARG) 6-2, 6-1

Blue Group

Andy Roddick (USA) bt Guillermo Coria (ARG) 7-6 (7/4), 6-3; Marat Safin (RUS) bt Tim Henman (GBR) 6-2, 7-6 (7/2).-Reuters