Roddick Ousts Former Champion Nadal; Djokovic Next at Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships

Dubai, UAE, March 6th, 2008: It was standing room only as Andy Roddick defeated Spaniard Rafael Nadal 7-6 6-2 in a centre court thriller on Thursday night.

That put the sixth seeded American into the semi-finals of the Barclays Dubai Tennis Championships, where he will face third seeded Serb Novak Djokovic.

The atmosphere was electric as Roddick threatened to blow Nadal off the court with the power of his serves and forehands. One ace, that set up match point, was 241 kph, a record for the tournament.

Still, Nadal made a great fight of it in the first set. The world number two held three break points to lead 4-3, but Roddick survived that and Nadal needed to save two break points in the following game before they moved to a tiebreak. Nadal took a 3-0 lead, Roddick eventually claimed the tiebreak 7-5.

Once he had taken the first set Roddick found it comparatively easy to break for 2-1 and 4-1. He needed fight off two break points as he served for the match, but then closed out the match with two aces.

“I knew I was going to hit it well from the first point,” said Roddick. “That’s what it took tonight. Anything less than that, I wasn’t going to win. It’s a fast court, the crowd was really into it and the atmosphere was great. I wasn’t going to get better conditions for myself against Rafa. I knew that and tried to take advantage.”

Nadal said that Roddick’s powerful game put his own game under pressure, as he was aware that if he gave anything away it would be difficult to recover.

“You feel a lot of pressure when you are serving because if you lose any serve, the way he was serving tonight it’s tough,” said Nadal.

"But in a way I am not disappointed with my game tonight. I didn’t pay bad. True I have some important mistakes, but I end the tournament better than I start and that’s always a positive thing.”

In contrast to Roddick’s first set, Djokovic had an easy ride against Russian Igor Andreev, taking just 56 minutes to win 6-2 6-1. Enough said about that.

The other semi-final will be between fifth seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko, who defeated Britain’s Andy Murray 7-5 6-4, and unseeded Feliciano Lopez, who upset fellow Spaniard and number four seed David Ferrer 6-4 6-3.

Murray had early chances against Davydenko, holding break points in the Russian’s first two service games. But then the Russian earned a crucial break at 5-5, went on to take the set, and then recovered from 0-3 in the second set.

Although Ferrer took the lead in each set against Lopez, breaking to lead 2-1 in the first and 1-0 in the second, Lopez recovered both times, breaking twice to take the first set and twice more in the second.

“I feel really good on the court here in Dubai,” said Lopez. “The conditions are really good for me and right now I’m so happy. I beat Berdych yesterday, David today, so I’m happy to be in the semi-finals again here in Dubai. It is definitely one of my favourite tournaments to play.”