DUBAI: Fourth-seed Juan Martin Del Potro eased into the semi-finals of the Dubai Tennis Championships at the Dubai Tennis Stadium on Thursday.
The world number seven from Argentina took one hour and two minutes to defeat the German qualifier Daniel Brands 6-4, 6-2.
In the first set both the players held their serve with Del Potro leading 5-4. The Argentine, however, broke the German’s serve at that point and clinched the set.
Capitalising on the Brands error, the Rotterdam Open winner won the second set comfortably 6-2 after breaking him twice.
“Looks easy but it was difficult at the court. I played really well in the second set and I took my chances to break his (Brands) serve. He made few mistakes with his forehand and the match was really fast,” said del Potro
“I played my game and tried to stay focused on my service game and I don’t make any hard efforts in the end of the match I served well today and I don’t have any break points. He made a few double faults in the important moments and I took that to break his serves and I think that was the key,” he added.
Talking about playing against top players, del Potro said: It’s always pleasure to play against top four including Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray as you know you have need to be 100 per cent or little more to have the chance to beat them.
“If I play against Novak (Djokovic) than I know the way to put him to risk his game. He is playing so well this season so it is going to be a tough match against him for sure.”
Meanwhile, Indo-American pair of Rohan Bopanna and Rajeev Ram advanced to the semi-finals of the doubles after rallying to beat Victor Hanescu of Romania and Lukas Rosol of Czech Republic 4-6,7-5 (10/4).
Bopanna and Ram lost the first set 4-6 but bounced back in the second set and stretched the match to third set. They will meet Mahesh Bhupathi and Michael Llorda who recovered from a set down to beat fourth-seed Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matkowski 4-6,6-4(10/8).