The Hindu : Sport / Tennis : Safin to meet Nalbandian

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Oct 24, 2004

Sport

Sport - Tennis

Safin to meet Nalbandian

MADRID, OCT. 23 . Marat Safin defeated Andre Agassi 6-3, 7-6 on Saturday to book a place in the Madrid Masters final against Argentina's David Nalbandian.

Safin dominated the game from the start, breaking Agassi six games in and holding on to his lead to take the set. Agassi was unable to convert any of three break points in the second set and had to struggle to hold on to most of his service games.

The American had an early lead in the tie-break, but Safin came back to take it 7-4 and complete victory in 94 minutes.

In the earlier semifinal, fourth seeded Nalbandian beat Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic 6-4, 6-4. Unseeded Ljubicic, whose quarterfinal match on Friday lasted almost three hours, looked sluggish and over-reliant on a serve that was not enough to hold off Nalbandian.

Bhupathi-Mirnyi out

Top seeds Mark Knowles and Daniel Nestor defeated the Indo-Belarusian pair of Mahesh Bhupathi and Max Mirnyi 6-4, 7-6(3) in the doubles semifinals. Reigning U.S. Open champions, Knowles and Nestor however had a tough time taming the fifth seeds who had beaten Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia and Germany's Rainer Schuettler 6-4, 6-2 in the quarterfinals.

The results:

At Madrid (Madrid Masters): Semifinals: Marat Safin bt Andre Agassi 6-3, 7-6; David Nalbandian bt Ivan Ljubicic 6-4, 6-4. Quarterfinals: Andre Agassi bt Tommy Robredo, 6-7(3), 6-3, 6-2; Ivan Ljubicic bt Joachim Johansson 7-6(2), 6-7 (1), 7-6(3); David Nalbandian bt Taylor Dent 7-6(4), 6-3; Marat Safin bt Luis Horna 6-4, 6-4. Third round: Ivan Ljubicic bt Tim Henman 6-4, 4-6, 6-2; Joachim Johansson bt Antony Dupuis 6-1, 7-6(6); Taylor Dent bt Tommy Haas 7-6(3), 6-2; Luis Horna bt Andrei Pavel 7-5, 6-4; David Nalbandian bt Paradorn Srichaphan 6-3, 6-1; Tommy Robredo bt Fernando Verdasco 2-6, 6-4, 6-3. Second round: Luis Horna bt Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-3, 6-1.

At Zurich: Swisscom Challenge: Semifinals: Alicia Molik bt Patty Schnyder 4-6, 6-1, 6-4; Maria Sharapova bt Elena Dementieva 4-6, 6-2, 6-3. Quarterfinals: Elena Dementieva bt Ai Sugiyama 6-1, 5-7, 7-5; Maria Sharapova bt Venus Williams 6-3, 6-4; Patty Schnyder bt Paola Suarez 6-2, 3-6, 6-4; Alicia Molik bt Nadia Petrova 6-3, 6-1. — Agencies

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