Teenager Yanina Wickmayer advances to 1st Grand Slam semi with 7-5, 6-4 win over Bondarenko

Wickmayer beats Bondarenko in Open quarterfinals

NEW YORK — Teenager Yanina Wickmayer is in her first Grand Slam semifinal 10 years after she and her father left behind their lives in Belgium to chase her tennis dream in Florida.

The unseeded 19-year-old beat Kateryna Bondarenko 7-5, 6-4 at the U.S. Open on Wednesday. She joins fellow Belgian Kim Clijsters in the semis and is guaranteed to face another teen — American Melanie Oudin or No. 9 seed Caroline Wozniacki of Denmark.

Ranked 50th, Wickmayer had never made it past the second round at a Grand Slam tournament.

When Wickmayer was 9, her mother died of cancer. Even at that young age, she realized she needed to get away from home, to start anew. Her father, who owned a construction company, quit his job so they could move to the Tampa area. They left behind their house, their cars, their friends.

On Wednesday, Wickmayer rallied to win the last five games of the second set to close out the 52nd-ranked Bondarenko of Ukraine.

“I missed a few opportunities,” Wickmayer said. “I was pretty mad at myself. I kept fighting and kept hanging in there and just came back.”

Later Wednesday, the 17-year-old, unseeded Oudin will try to keep her dream run going with a quarterfinal match against the 19-year-old Wozniacki.

Clijsters, another unseeded surprise, beat No. 18 Li Na 6-2, 6-4 Tuesday to set up a semifinal meeting against No. 2 Serena Williams, a 6-4, 6-3 winner over 10th-seeded Flavia Pennetta.

Also Tuesday, Rafael Nadal got stronger as the match went on in a hard-earned, fourth-round win.

It was a 6-7 (3), 6-3, 6-1, 6-3 victory over No. 13 Gael Monfils, a Frenchman who feeds off the crowd in New York and has the talent, but not the stamina yet, to put on a great show against the world’s best.

“An important match for the confidence,” Nadal said.

The first two sets were some of the most entertaining tennis of the tournament, full of stinging forehands and squeakily precise footwork. And when Monfils started asking for more noise on set point in the first — while Nadal was getting ready to serve — it brought some edginess to a match that could have been routine.

Before he ran out of gas, Monfils got his set. But Nadal won the match and there were no injury timeouts or signs that his stomach muscles or his knees — the two problem points this week and this summer — were any trouble.

He did have a patch on his abdomen, shown off when he changed shirts at the end of the match, then got an unwanted kiss from a male fan who ran onto the court from the stands. The fan was arrested and the U.S. Open vowed to review its security procedures.

Nadal said he didn’t have a problem with it.

“He said ‘I love you,’ and he kissed me,” Nadal said.

Besides that security breach, it was a good-news day for the third-seeded Nadal. He took the court a few hours after Britain’s favorite, No. 2 Andy Murray, put in a lackluster effort in a 7-5, 6-2, 6-2 loss to No. 16 Marin Cilic — a setback Murray called the most disappointing of his career.

The right-hander who hits a two-handed backhand said his left wrist was hurting — he could be seen grabbing it and wincing in pain during a changeover — but didn’t blame that for his loss.

Murray’s loss leaves Nadal as the highest seeded player on that side of the draw, and also means he’ll jump ahead of Murray when the next rankings are released. After missing about two months, including Wimbledon, to rest his sore knees, Nadal is getting stronger with each match.

“The knees are perfect,” he said. “That’s very important for me.”

The prospect of the next Rafa-Roger (Federer) final at a Grand Slam tournament — tennis fans have had to wait more than seven months, since the Australian Open — is getting more likely.

Federer plays his quarterfinal Wednesday against Robin Soderling — the 12th-seeded Swede who knocked Nadal out of the French Open, then lost to Federer in the final.