Dubai: Germany’s Philipp Kohlschreiber beat Tunisian wildcard Malek Jaziri 6-2, 6-3 to reach the semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open for the first time in his career on Thursday.
Elsewhere, defending champion Novak Djokovic of Serbia was handed a walkover after Russia’s Mikhail Youzhny withdrew due to illness.
World No.2 Djokovic will now play the winner of Thursday’s late game between record five-time event winner Roger Federer of Switzerland and Slovakia’s Lukas Rosol in Friday’s semi-final.
Kohlschreiber’s next opponent would be the winner of the match pitting France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and the Czech Republic’s Tomas Berdych, who were due to play each other in Thursday night’s other late quarter-final.
World No.26 Kohlschreiber, aged 30, broke Jaziri’s serve in games two and eight to take the first set with ease.
He then broke in the eighth game of the second set to secure victory in just over an hour.
“I think I had a very solid performance today,” said Kohlschreiber, who overcame Thiemo de Bakker of the Netherlands and Italy’s Andreas Seppi by identical 6-3, 6-3 margins in the first and second rounds.
“My key was to move him around a lot. That’s what I’m doing pretty well, moving my opponent, trying to play with good angles, and I was very solid from the baseline. I took the chances and tried to be aggressive.”
In five previous appearances in Dubai, Kohlscrheiber has only progressed to the second round on three occasions. But against wildcard Jaziri, he made his path to the latter stages of the competition sound all too easy.
“He was playing quite defensively, especially on the backhand,” said the 2012 Wimbledon quarter-finalist. “His second serve wasn’t that huge a weapon. He high-bounced but slow, so I tried to be aggressive from the start, I had a good start in the first set and that gave me a lot of confidence.”
In the semi-final, Kohlschreiber will face much more formidable opponents in Tsonga or Berdych. Against Tsonga, he has only won once in six previous meetings while in his clashes with Berdych he has won just one in seven in the past.
“They are both very good players. They hit very hard,” he said. “It’s going to be very tough. I have to try and dictate the game. Otherwise, if they push me around, I think they are too powerful. I lost a couple of times against both players, so I have to do something different.”
Meanwhile, Jaziri, who is only the fourth Arab player to reach the latter stages of the men’s open, said Kohlschreiber deserved all credit for his win.
“He played very good. I think, since he broke me early in the first set, he had more confidence. After that, I was running a little bit heavy.
“He made me move, I tried to finish the point, so we didn’t play more rallies because I wasn’t feeling good. But he focused on that and played smart today.
“For me, getting this far is a positive result. I’m coming from a long injury lay-off and I’m close to breaking into the top 100 now — it’s good for confidence. I’m close to playing [at the French Open at] Roland Garros and the Wimbledon in the main draw, so that’s very important.”
