BBC SPORT | Tennis | Agassi strolls into semis

Friday's results

Andre Agassi produced a confident performance to beat home favourite Juan Carlos Ferrero 6-3 6-2 and reach the semi-finals of the Madrid Masters.

Agassi had laboured for almost two and a half hours in putting away Spanish wildcard Feliciano Lopez on Thursday night.

Madrid Masters: Thursday's action

But that battle appeared to have taken little out of the second seed as he pressured the Ferrero serve throughout Friday's match.

After an early exchange of breaks, Agassi took a decisive 4-2 lead in the first set when Ferrero hit a forehand long on a third break point against him.

Agassi then pulled clear in the second set, roaring into a 5-1 lead with a breathtaking array of shots from the back of the court.

The American completed victory with an ace down the middle on his first match point.

Jiri Novak celebrates victory against Paradorn Srichaphan
Jiri Novak is closing on a Masters Cup place

"There are just some days that things go that well," said Agassi.

"You not only hit the ball well, things are really falling your way, too. Today was a great day for me."

Agassi now has a semi-final against seventh-seed Sebastien Grosjean, who maintained his excellent run of form at the event.

The French player has yet to drop a set in the tournament and he marched into the last four with a 6-3 7-6 win over Argentine qualifier Agustin Calleri .

Grosjean took the first set with little trouble, breaking Calleri in game seven.

But he was made to work harder in the second set as Calleri forced a tie-break.

The Frenchman looked in trouble as he trailed 4-1 in the tie-break, but he kept his composure to rattle off six straight points to win the match.

Masters Cup: the race to Shanghai

Meanwhile, French qualifier Fabrice Santoro upset 12th seed Roger Federer 7-5 6-3 to reach the semi-finals.

Santoro's ability to mix up his game with subtle chips and flicks unsettled his Swiss opponent and took him through to a clash with Jiri Novak for a place in the final.

Novak brought Paradorn Srichaphan's run to an end.

Srichaphan, who had beaten Gustavo Kuerten and Britain's Tim Henman earlier in the week, went down 4-6 6-3 6-4 to the Czech.

Srichaphan took the first set in just 24 minutes but Novak stayed calm and was rewarded with a break in the fourth game of the second set.

That was enough to seal the set and Novak went on to secure a break in the fifth game of the decider, helped along the way by a double-fault from the Thai.

The 11th seed then calmly held his serve to book his place in the semi-finals.


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