French qualifier Mahut books Rotterdam last-four berth

ROTTERDAM, Netherlands: French qualifier Nicolas Mahut continued his dream week at the Rotterdam World Tennis on Friday with a 6-2, 6-1 thrashing of eighth seed Viktor Troicki to reach the semifinals.
The 34-year-old winner will play either Spanish sixth seed Robert Bautista Agut or the Slovak Martin Klizan in Saturday’s semi.
“Just over an hour, that is something I didn’t expect,” Mahut said after beating an opponent who reached the final in Sofia last week.
“He was maybe tired form last week. I played well and it worked out as a good combination for me. I’ll be ready for the semis.”
Mahut, ranked 54th in the world, has a winning past in the Netherlands, earning a pair of trophies at the grass event at Rosmalen in 2013 and 2015.
The Frenchman had lost both of his previous matches to Troicki, including a quarterfinal a month ago in Sydney. He will play his first semifinal since last June.
“It’s a great story,” the winner said after victory in 71 minutes against an opponent who was clearly off the boil. “I’m feeling fine with my tennis, I’ve not had an injury in two years.
“It’s all going well. I played a great match today. Now that I’m in the semifinals, you never know, I need to come out and play like I did today.”
Mahut said he has become used to the slow court at the Ahoy stadium, which seemed to combine poorly with the game of Troicki.
“He likes it faster, he likes to have the pace,” Mahut said. “I tried to play as slowly as possible to make it uncomfortable for him. That tactic worked today.”
Mahut will be competing in his eighth career semifinal; the winner broke four times while saving three break points against his serve.
At the top of the draw second seed and former finalist Marin Cilic was playing German Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Nadal returns with a win

Rafael Nadal returned to action on Thursday for the first time since his shock first-round exit from the Australian Open with a straight-sets win over Juan Monaco in the ATP Argentina Open.
Defending Buenos Aires champion Nadal wasn’t his sharpest self in the rematch of last year’s final.
He dropped his serve three times but broke Monaco in the final game of each set to emerge with a 6-4, 6-4 victory in one hour and 38 minutes.
He set up a quarterfinal clash with Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi, a 4-6, 6-3, 6-1 winner over Diego Schwartzman.
The year started for Nadal with a 6-1, 6-2 thrashing by Novak Djokovic in the final at Doha, which was followed by his 7-6 (8/6), 4-6, 3-6, 7-6 (7/4), 6-2 loss to fellow Spaniard Fernando Verdasco in his first round in Melbourne — just the second first-round exit from a Grand Slam in his career.

Venus fights back

Venus Williams fought back from a slow start against Latvian world number 103 Anastasija Sevastova to reach the Taiwan Open semifinals 7-5, 6-2 on Friday.
The seven-time Grand Slam-winner was struggling at 2-5 down in the first set, but she then won five straight games and fended off two set points before accelerating to victory.
Top seed Williams, 35, will play Yulia Putintseva in her first semifinal of 2016 after the Kazakh third seed went through courtesy of a retirement by Switzerland’s Stefanie Voegele.
“I didn’t think about the set points, I just tried to not lose the set,” said Williams, the world number 12, according to the WTA website.
Taiwanese sixth seed Hsieh Su-wei beat Russia’s Elizaveta Kulichkova 6-0, 6-2 to set up a semifinal with Misaki Doi, who had a walkover against fellow Japanese Kurumi Nara.