Youzhny beats Hrbaty to reach last four in China Open
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2004-09-19 22:07

Russia's Mikhail Youzhny continued his resurgence with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over eighth seeded Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty to power into last four of China Open tennis tournament in Beijing on September 17.

It was plain sailing for 22-year-old Youzhny, the conqueror of fourth seed Rainer Scheuttler, to break his higher ranked opponent Hrbaty in the opening game and presented the Slovakian a gloomy warning.

The eighth seed had never lead in the match in spite of trading the break in game six to pull a 3-3 level, but dropped his serve in decisive ninth game to trail 5-4 and lost the first set 6-4.

The animated Russian was more impressive in the second set by notching 11 points out of first 12 for a 4-0 lead with first two as love games. Youzhny's blasting serve and cross court shot put Hrbaty into depressing situation of more errors.

The Russian wrapped up his third victory here with two aces, romping into the semi-final to set up a match with the winner between Thailand's Paradorn Srichaphan and Hyung-Taik Lee of South Korea.

Youzhny is rallying for his first ATP title of this season, while Hrbaty has won two ATP tournaments of the Australian hardcourt champion and Marseille Open.

"It's always happy to win. What I need to do now is improve my play and my ranking every month," said Youzhny. "I have my best form in 2002 and now I'm trying to regain that to win tournaments."

China Open has been acting as the slayer of big names with five of the eight seeds eliminated early.

Before Youzhny sent fourth-seeded Scheuttler and eighth-seeded Hybaty packing home, Carlos Moya, the first-seeded Spaniard was knocked out in first round by Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, a fresh man in ATP tour. Ferrero followed his fellowman's footstep to return home early in the second round after being ousted 6-4, 6-4 by American Kevin Kim, who has played just 22 ATP matches.