/ 2 June 2005

Birthday boy reaches French Open semifinal

Nikolay Davydenko celebrated his 24th birthday a day early on Wednesday when he reached his first grand-slam semifinal with a dramatic 3-6, 6-1, 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 win over Spain’s Tommy Robredo in a marathon French Open last-eight clash.

The 12th-seeded Russian will now face Argentina’s unseeded Mariano Puerta, whom he beat in Hamburg three weeks ago, for a place in Sunday’s final.

But he reached the last four the hard way.

He had to endure a tense final-set decider, after being up by two sets to one as well as a break to the good at 4-3 in the fourth, and then squandered three match points in the eighth game of the deciding set before wrapping up the tie.

”My brother is 35 today, so this was a present for him,” said Davydenko. ”I wouldn’t have liked to have played on my birthday and lost. But now I am in the semifinal and next week I will be in the top 10, and these things are very important.”

Davydenko was playing in his second successive grand-slam quarterfinal, after making the last eight at the Australian Open in January, and he was the man in form, having won the St Poelten warm-up event on the eve of Roland Garros.

Both players exchanged breaks in the first two games, but Robredo settled into a solid, baseline rhythm faster than the Russian and wrapped up the first set 6-3 after 39 minutes.

But Davydenko is used to uphill climbs in Paris. He had to recover from losing the first set in his second-round match with Olivier Rochus and his fourth-round meeting with 2004 runner-up Guillermo Coria to get this far.

He reduced his error count and broke the Spaniard three times in the second set to take it to 6-1 in just 28 minutes to level the contest.

Davydenko was quickly on top again in the third set as Robredo, who had put out another Russian, third seed Marat Safin in the fourth round, struggled with his timing and his first serve.

Davydenko raced to a 3-1 lead, which soon became 5-2 as the Spaniard’s game began to fall apart, and the Russian sealed the set when the bewildered Robredo hit long.

The Russian then recovered from a break down to lead 4-3 in the fourth set, but Robredo hung on and reeled off the next three games to take the set and level the contest after two hours and 28 minutes.

The 23-year-old Robredo, however, was in trouble straight away in the decider when his brittle service was exposed again by the Russian, who enjoyed a break in the first game.

A fired-up Robredo was back on level terms at 2-2 courtesy of a whipped, backhand pass but the Russian then edged ahead with another break at 4-3 as both men began to tire.

Davydenko held on for 5-3, when his opponent carelessly ballooned an easy forehand, and then carved out three match points, all of which were gallantly saved by the Spaniard in the eighth game.

The Russian then saved two break points and went to his fourth match point, which he converted when Robredo skewered a backhand wide of the line after three hours and 18 minutes of action. — Sapa-AFP