Krajinovic completes Dubai tennis semi-final line-up

Dubai: Seventh seed Filip Krajinovic completed the singles semi-final line-up with a smooth 6-1, 6-2 win over Russian Evgeny Donskoy at the Dubai Duty Free Men’s Open, late on Thursday.

The Serbian, who raced to his first-ever singles career final as a qualifier at the ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in Paris last year, had very little resistance from Donskoy – the man who last year sent hot favourite and Dubai crowd-puller Roger Federer — crashing out in their second round encounter.

Krajinovic will take on second seed Lucas Pouille after the 24-year-old Frenchman took three sets in disposing off Yuichi Sugita of Japan.

The second semi-final will be contested between wild card and Arab star Malek Jaziri and third seeded Roberto Bautista Agut of Spain.

Friday’s action will see play commence at 2.30pm with the men’s doubles followed by the two singles semi-finals starting at 5pm.

Results

(Singles quarter-finals) Roberto Bautista Agut bt Borna Coric 7-6, 6-4; Malek Jaziri vs Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 3-6, 6-3; Lucas Pouille bt Yuichi Sugita 3-6, 6-3, 6-2; Filip Krajinovic vs Evgeny Donskoy 6-1, 6-2.

Friday order of play

Centre Court

(Start at 2.30pm) Doubles semi-final: Ivan Dodig/Rajeev Ram vs Jean-Julien Rojer/Horia Tecau

(Not before 5pm) Singles semi-final: Filip Krajinovic vs Lucas Pouille

(Not before 7pm) Singles semi-final: Malek Jaziri vs Roberto Bautista Agut

Doubles semi-final: Damir Dzumhur/Filip Krajinovic vs Jamie Cerretani/Leander Paes