Semifinals set

A marathon day of tennis at the Connecticut Tennis Center is over and only eight singles players and 16 doubles players remain.

With rain washing out Tuesday's day session, men's players were forced to play both the third round and quarterfinals on Thursday.

No. 1 seed Nikolay Davydenko, No. 2 Tommy Robredo and No. 4 David Ferrer never got to play their night matches on Thursday - not because of the weather but because they were the sent packing with third-round losses. Davydenko fell to Gilles Simon, Stanislas Wawrinka took out Robredo and Ferrer lost to Igor Andreev. James Blake, the No. 3 seed and local favorite, appeared well on his well to joining the favorites on the outside looking in. Agustin Calleri had triple match point on his serve in the second set but couldn't put Blake away. The former Fairfield resident rallied for a three-set win and then beat Fernando Verdasco in the quarterfinals to reach the semis. Fifth-seeded Paul-Henri Mathieu will be his opponent Friday night. Ivo Karlovic, a 6-foot-10 Croatian, will play unseeded American Mardy Fish in the other semi.

On the women's side, Russians Svetlana Kuznetsova and Elena Dementieva won their quarterfinals and will face each other in the semifinals in a rematch of the 2004 U.S. Open final. Kuznetsova won that match and as the top seed in the Pilot Pen, will be the favorite again. The other semi will feature qualifier against Elena Daniilidou, a player who got into the draw only because the tournament didn't have a gold or silver exempt player to award a wild card to so by rule the spot goes to the top player on the next-in list.


Here's the order of play for Friday.
ORDER OF PLAY
Stadium
Men's doubles semifinal: (4) Mariusz Fyrstenberg (POL)/Marcin Matkowski (POL) v Jordan Kerr(AUS)/Jamie Murray (GBR), 10 a.m.
Women's singles semifinal: (1) Svetlana Kuznetsova (RUS) v (6) Elena Dementieva (RUS), not before noon
Followed by
Men's singles semifinal: (WC) Mardy Fish (USA) v Ivo Karlovic (CRO)
Followed by
Women's doubles semifinal: (1) Cara Black (ZIM)/Liezel Huber (USA) v Iveta Benesova(CZE)/Bethanie Mattek (USA)
Not before 7pm
Women's singles semifinal: Eleni Daniilidou (GRE) v Agnes Szavay (HUN)
Followed by
Men's singles semifinal: (3) James Blake (USA) v (5) Paul-Henri Mathieu (FRA)

Grandstand Court
Women's doubles semifinal: Iveta Benesova (CZE)/Bethanie Mattek (USA) v Sania Mirza (IND)/MaraSantangelo (ITA), 3 p.m.
Followed by
Men's singles semifinal: (1) Mahesh Bhupathi (IND)/Nenad Zimonjic (SRB) v Eric Butorac(USA)/Ashley Fisher (AUS), not before 4.30pm

- Jim Fuller

Another No. 2 seed falls

The upsets continue at the Connecticut Tennis Center.
On Wednesday, women's No. 2 seed Daniela Hantuchova fell to qualifier Agnes Szavay. On Thursday, the men's No. 2 seed Tommy Robredo lost to Stanislas Wawrinka 6-3, 6-3. Wawrinka obviously not only has a tennis game but also a sense of humor as he has taken to calling himself "The Swiss player who loses." Wawrinka is the No. 2 ranked men's player in Switzerland after No. 1 Roger Federer.

American Mardy Fish continued to advance as he outlasted Jose Acasuso to advance to the quarterfinals. Fish is thriving in the "upset bracket" at the Pilot Pen as all four seeds in that quarter of the bracket - No. 2 Robredo, No. 7 Filippo Volandri, No. 9 Dominik Hrbaty and No. 15 Gael Monfils - have been eliminated. Only one other unseeded player reached the Round of 16 in the quarters of the other three brackets and that player (2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johannson) was knocked out in three sets.
- Jim Fuller