Lucky stuff for the seed no.1 Janko Tipsarevic. On the paper the Serb had a not so difficult task ahead against world no.81, on the court the situation was very different. Janko lost an incredible 1st set where he was leading 6-2 in the tiebreak to then lose it 8-6. In the second set the world no.8 had to save 4 match points to then win at the tiebreak 7-2. The match was quite even till the end when Tipsarevic won the decider 6-4. The match ended after 3 hours.
“I’m a little bit lucky that I managed to win the second set and save four match points,” said Tipsarevic. “I kept calm in the third set and I was playing good. We were out on the court so long and it’s not easy to close out the match no matter who you’re playing. He went for a little bit too much on two occasions, but on the other two match points I think I played well.”
Monaco had an easier life against the world no. 206. to win in 1h and 36minutes a match full of breaks (11 on 19 games). Both players had big problems to cope with their 2nd serve with Cervenak committing 7 double faults and winning only 27% points on the second serve (Monaco also won only 38% points on the second serve).
In the other quarters, Bellucci breezed past Stebe 6-4 6-1 in 70 minutes and Garcia Lopez defeated Dustin Brown 6-0 6-3 in less than 1 hour.
SEMIFINALS
Tipsarevic – Bellucci (head to head 1-0 for Bellucci on hard court in Indian Wells in 2009 5-7 7-5 6-2)
Monaco – Garcia Lopez (head to head 3-1 for Monaco, 1-1 on Clay)