France’s Gilles Simon, Austria’s Jurgen Melzer advance to semifinals at Thailand Open
By APFriday, October 2, 2009
Simon, Melzer march into Thailand Open semifinals
BANGKOK — Second-seeded Gilles Simon of France rallied past big-hitting Evgeny Korolev of Russia on Friday to reach the Thailand Open semifinals with a 4-6, 6-3, 6-4 victory.
Simon struggled to counter the 66th-ranked Korolev’s big groundstrokes in the first set, having to chase down shot after shot before finally starting to force some errors.
“He played amazing tennis in the first two sets,” the 10th-ranked Simon said. “He rarely gave me any chance in the first set and hit the ball really hard. Finally my plan was to hold my serves and wait for his mistakes.”
Simon will next face sixth-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria, who defeated Germany’s Andreas Beck 6-4, 6-2 in just 66 minutes.
“Melzer is a good player,” said Simon. “I saw him play. He didn’t miss for the whole match. He is good in every part of the game. I expect a hard match.”
The 44th-ranked Melzer reached his second semifinal of the year.
“It looked easy but it was not easy,” Melzer said. “I played a really good match. I put a lot of pressure on him with my serves. … Simon is a top-10 player. He is talented. But I don’t care who I’m playing because if I keep up at this level, it will be tough to beat me.”
