World no.2 and top seed Roger Federer had a big problem in his quarterfinal match against Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain in the TEB BNP Paribas Open at Istanbul. The Swiss was taken to the tiebreak in the first set before winning it but pushed hard in the second. Federer changed gear under trying circumstances to beat the Spaniard and booked his place in the semifinal. In Munich, rain was a big spoilsport as no matches could be played on Friday. The Munich Saturday, therefore will be extremely busy with matches all day. Andy Murray may be required to play up to three matches since he is also playing doubles. In Millenium Estoril Open, Australian Nick Kyrgios reached the semifinals after defeating Dutchman Robin Haase to set up a clash with Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta. In the other semifinal, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez will play against Frenchman Richard Gasquet.
Roger Federer met with an unexpected opposition on Friday, where the Swiss required battling hard against Spain’s Daniel Gimeno-Trevor. After winning the first set on tie-break, Federer slipped to 2-5 deficit in the second set and though he couldn’t prevent the set from going to the tiebreak, he recovered to level the score 6-6. The Spaniard, who recently finished as runners-up to Martin Klizan in the Grand Prix Hassan II ATP 250 tournament at Casablanca, reeled off 7 out of 9 points in the second set tiebreak and took Federer to the deciding third set. But Federer’s master class was evident in the decider as he finished the match 7-6, 6-7, 6-3. For the final spot, Federer will take on eighth seed Diego Schwartzman of Argentina. Schwartzman also recovered from a disastrous start before prevailing over Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo 0-6, 6-2, 6-2 in a little under two hours. In other men’s singles quarterfinal matches at Istanbul, Bulgarian second seed Grigor Dimitrov had an easy 6-4, 6-3 win over Croatia’s Ivan Dodig while Argentine Pablo Cuevas defeated Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil 7-5, 6-3. Now Dimitrov will play Cuevas for a place in the final. In the men’s doubles semifinals, top seeds Robert Lindstedt/Jurgen Melzer entered the final by beating Marcus Daniell/Santiago Giraldo 6-2, 6-1. The Swedish/Austrian pair will play the winners of the match between Radu Albot/Dusan Lajovic and Chris Guccione/Andre Sa.
Not a single match could be played at the BMW Open in Munich, where it rained heavily all day and night. It only means that Saturday will be busy with six singles matches to include all four quarterfinals and the two semifinals. In addition there will be two doubles semifinals. Andy Murray, who is already in the men’s doubles semifinal, may end up a tired man with three matches on hand.
In Portugal’s Millenium Estoril Open, Australian Nick Kyrgios defeated Netherlands’ Robin Haase 6-3, 6-4 to enter the semifinals. Now for a place in the final, Kyrgios will play against Pablo Carreno Busta, who defeated eighth seeded Gilles Muller 6-2, 6-4 in the other quarterfinal. The other two players making it to the Estoril Open semifinals were Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and Richard Gasquet. While Garcia-Lopez defeated Croatian teenager Borna Coric 6-3, 7-6; Gasquet prevailed over Nicolas Almagro 6-1, 7-6. For the final spot Garcia-Lopez and Gasquet will clash with each other.
In the doubles, the pair of Gilles Muller/Aisam-Ul-Haq Qureshi defeated Martin Emmrich/Andreas Siljestrom 6-3, 6-2 to reach the semifnals. They will take on no.2 seeds Treat Huey/Scott Lipsky for a place in the final.
