ST. PETERSBURG, Russia — The Associated Press Published on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 6:13PM EDT Last updated on Friday, Oct. 30, 2009 6:36PM EDT
Russian Marat Safin advanced to his first semi-final in 23 events by beating Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan 6-0, 7-6 (4) in the St. Petersburg Open on Friday.
Safin, the two-time champion who is ranked 77th, last played in a semifinals at the Kremlin Cup a year ago.
On Saturday, Safin will play Ukrainian qualifier Sergiy Stakhovsky, who beat German veteran Bjorn Phau 6-2, 7-5. Russia's Igor Kunitsyn upset second-seeded Victor Hanescu of Romania 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (6) to set up the other semifinal against the last surviving seed, No. 8 Horacio Zeballos. The Argentine defeated Ernests Gulbis of Latvia 7-6 (8), 6-4.
Safin won the first eight games to lead by a set and 2-0, but Istomin broke back to make it 3-3. Safin broke again for 5-4 with a precise cross-court return, but played sloppy while serving for the match and sent it to a tiebreaker.
“I received well and converted all my break opportunities in the first set,” Safin said. “But then I lost concentration and I doubted I would be able to win in two sets when I missed a smash while serving for the match.”
Istomin netted a backhand slice on match point.
Safin, the two-time Grand Slam champion, is playing out his last season on the ATP Tour, and said he would enter his last competitive tournament — the Paris Masters — on a wild card.
The former No. 1 has won 15 titles in his career, his last at the 2005 Australian Open. He reached two previous quarter-finals this season but went no further.
The 93rd-ranked Stakhovsky will appear in his second career semifinal.
After trading sets with Kunitsyn and exchanging breaks in the third set, Hanescu saved a match point in the 12th game to force a tiebreaker. Leading 6-5, the Romanian returned long to waste the match point, and Kunitsyn won the next three points to close the match.
In his first sem-ifinal this year, the 103-ranked Kunitsyn — who won his only title by beating Safin in the Kremlin Cup final last year — will play Zeballos, who reached his first career ATP semifinal at the expense of Gulbis.
Playing in only his fourth ATP event, Zeballos withstood 18 aces from Gulbis.
Zeballos won five challenger titles this year to improve from 209th in the rankings at the start of the season.
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