Dubai: The top three seeds booked their places in the semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open taking place at the Dubai Tennis Stadium on Friday.
Defending champion and top seed Novak Djokovic will take on third seed Andy Murray in a re-match of the Australian Open semis, while former four-time winner Roger Federer will face big-serving Juan Martin Del Potro.
Djokovic secured a tight 6-1, 7-6 (6) win over close friend and countryman Janko Tipsarevic and Murray eased his way past fifth seed Tomas Berdych 6-3, 7-5.
In the lower end of the draw, Federer took his career record to 12-0 against Mikhail Youzhny with a 6-3, 6-4 drubbing of the lone unseeded player in the quarter-finals, and then Del Potro – who had beaten Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in last Friday’s semi-finals in Marseille, came up with a repeat with a 7-6 (1), 6-2 result against the Frenchman.
Federer was not off to his normal flourish at the onset, but consolidated as the set progressed getting his first break in the fourth for a 3-1 lead.
“It’s never easy and I think I played well on the service games. I am pleased with another semi-finals here in Dubai,” Federer said.
Champion here in 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007, Federer started the second set with an early break and held for 2-0 and went all the way to take set and match 6-4 to set a repeat of the Rotterdam Open final held last month. “Both of them have been playing well of late and I have met both of them quite a few times in recent times. Either of them will do for me in the semi-final,” Federer said.
Earlier, Murray made his first semi-final appearance in Dubai with a straight-set victory over Berdych earlier in the afternoon.
Murray had a great start to the set with a break in-between held serves gave him a healthy 3-0 cushion. He kept up the pressure on his Czech opponent and went all the way to take the first set 6-3 in 42 minutes.
In the second, Murray broke early and then served a love match to go 2-0 up. But Berdych had no intentions of giving up so easily as he broke back (2-2) and then could do very little as Murray broke back for a second time (3-2) only to see his Czech opponent break back and hold for 4-3.
Both went on serve till the eleventh when Berdych netted an easy forehand for Murray to break one last time who then served off for set and match 7-5 in an hour and 51 minutes to set a repeat of the Australian Open semi-final.
“Tactically I was doing the right things, and then maybe got away from that a little bit. But I just hung in at the end. I fought and scrambled and did what I had to do to win,” Murray confessed.
After his semi-final heartbreak against Djokovic in January, Murray was hoping for a result in his favour in today’s semi-final. “Be surprised if it went the same way tomorrow. It should be obviously a great challenge. Any time you play against the top players, that’s the case,” Murray said.
“I would like to get a chance to play him [Djokovic] again. It would be good to see exactly what I need to work on, where my game is. And yeah, I had a great match with him in Australia, and hopefully can reverse the result tomorrow,” he added.
Order of Play
Centre Court (Start at 2 pm) Julian Knowle/Alexander Peya vs Mahesh Bhupathi/Rohan Bopanna; (5 pm) Novak Djokovic vs Andy Murray; (7 pm) Juan Martin Del Potro OR Jo-Wilfried Tsonga vs Roger Federer.
Court 1 (Start at 2 pm) Mariusz Fyrstenberg/Marcin Matkowski vs Jonathan Erlich/Andy Ram.
Results:
(Singles) Andy Murray bt Tomas Berdych 6-3, 7-5; Roger Federer vs Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-4; Novak Djokovic bt Janko Tipsarevic 6-1, 7-6 (6); Juan Martin Del Potro bt Jo-Wilfried Tsonga 7-6 (1), 6-2.
(Doubles) Jonathan Erlich/Andy Ram bt Robert Lindstedt/Horia Tecau 6-1, 6-2; Mariusz Frystenberg/Marcin Matkowski bt Michael Kohlmann/Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-6, 6-3; Julian Knowle/Alexander Peya bt Michael Llodra/Nenad Zimonjic 7-6 (3), 7-6 (2); Mahesh Bhupathi/Rohan Bopanna bt Paul Hanley/Jamie Murray 6-3, 6-3.
