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  • Top Four Seeds Advance to Bastad Semifinals

    7/12/08 7:08 AM | Ricky Dimon
    - For the first time since 1984, the top four seeds in Bastad advanced to the semifinals. Joining David Ferrer in the last four are Fernando Verdasco, Tommy Robredo, and Tomas Berdych.

    Tomas Berdych d. Potito Starace 6-3, 6-2

    Starace had marathon wins over Carlos Moya and Marat Safin in the previous two rounds and it caught up with him on Friday. The Italian made almost all of his first serves simply by spinning them in, but that was not nearly enough against Berdych, who dominated from start to finish. Firing seven aces in nine service games, the fourth-seeded Czech never faced a single break point. A rematch of a Wimbledon third-round clash against Fernando Verdasco is now in store for Berdych.

    Fernando Verdasco d. Bjorn Rehnquist 2-6, 6-1, 6-0

    The Swedes' hope for a miracle seemed possible after one set, but those ideas came crashing back to earth as Verdasco quickly restored order to the proceedings. A dismal first set gave way to Verdasco buckling down mentally and putting his game on cruise control. The Spaniard allowed Rehnquist just one gave over the final two sets and he broke serve every single time in his opponent's last seven service games. As long as Verdasco doesn't double-fault six times against Berdych--like he did against Rehnquist--he has a great chance of making it to the final.

    Tommy Robredo d. Jarkko Nieminen 6-2, 7-6(4)

    Rain interrupted play but it could not stop Robredo from finshing off Nieminen en route to the semifinals. The Finn was utterly hopeless in the first set, winning just four return points. He righted the ship in set two and started to be competitive in baseline rallies, but Nieminen's serve remained ineffective. The two players exchanged a pair of breaks as the set progressed to a tiebreaker, where Nieminen could not come up with the goods in order to stay in the match. Over the two sets Nieminen served no aces, double-faulted three times, and won only 39 percent of his second-serve points. Next up for Robredo is No. 1 seed David Ferrer.

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