Somdev gets past Izak; seals place in semifinals

The sixth Indian beat the South African Davis Cupper 6-4, 6-2 in the quarterfinal of the hard court event on Friday.

This is Somdev’s second best performance of the year after making the final of the Chennai Open. Somdev was struggling on the circuit since that memorable feat.

He will next take on Australia’s seventh seed Chris Guccione, who ousted third seed American Wayne Odesink 7-6 (7-5), 2-6, 7-6 (7-2) in his last-eight encounter.

In the doubles event, Harsh Mankad and his American partner David Martin have also reached the semifinals after beating Alex Bogomolov Jr and Samuel Groth in the second round.

The second-seeded Indo-American pair scored an easy 6-3, 6-2 win over the American-Australian combo.

They will next take on third seed Australians Guccione and Carsten Bell who beat Merwe and Nick Lindahl of Australia 6-3, 6-4 in their second round.

Hanescu in final

Romanian Victor Hanescu ended Fabio Fognini's dream run in Stuttgart, beating the gutsy Italian 6-3, 6-7, 6-2 to reach his first final in a year.

World number 33 Hanescu will play the winner of the other semifinal between Germany's Nicolas Kiefer and Frenchman Jeremy Chardy.

Kiefer crushed Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot 6-2, 6-1 for his first semifinal of the year while Chardy ousted another German, Mischa Zverev, 7-6, 6-1. .