Frank Dancevic Into Eastbourne Semifinals; David Ferrer Gone in Holland

(Photo by Julian Finney/Getty Images)

Eastbourne, Great Briton—AEGON International

Canadian glory

It certainly has been a while since a Canadian male player made the semifinals of an ATP World Tour event—July 2008 to be exact. With only one ranked player in the top 200, these sort of accomplishments are far and few between for Canadian tennis fan's Canada's lone warrior who made the semifinals in Newport last year, (yes another grass-court tournament) Frank Dancevic, is back into the final four of a tour event.

Dancevic fully engaged his primary weapon today, his serve, whipping 16 aces by his opponent Leonardo Mayer of Argentina to capture a 6-7 (7-4), 6-4, 7-5 victory.

Credit goes to Mayer in this encounter as he almost had Dancevic cooked. Although his repertoire of shots are best suited to clay-courts, the Argentine demonstrated that his game can translate well onto the lawns, and players from Argentina can play on grass as well.

Mayer had 15 aces of his own, but was never able to break the Dancevic serve. The Canadian by contrast broke serve on two occasions, both at the tail end of set two and three.

Dancevic also won a very high 85 percent of his first serve points, and only had one double fault throughout.

As mentioned in previous reviews this week, Dancevic's best surface is grass, and he has been quite unlucky in the past to not reach at least one round of 16 at the Big W.

With his current increase in form and confidence, the Canadian could be placed in the dark horse column come Wimbledon next week. If he can serve well, then he will always give himself a shot at victory.

With the win, Dancevic advances to final four of Eastbourne, for the first time where he will meet fourth seed Fabrice Santoro who advanced to the semifinals when his opponent Ivan Ljubicic was forced to retire after leading 6-3, 2-4.

In a battle of two veteran players who had split their previous eight meetings, Ljubicic started off in a flurry winning the first set on the strength of seven aces and 88 percent of his first serve points won.

But with a ill-timed injury forcing the 30-year-old Croatian to withdraw, his 37-year-old opponent was granted safe passage into the semifinals.

In one way or another you have to love Santoro for sticking around and making another final-four of a main tour event. You better believe that many players around the world would kill to be where Santoro is at the moment, with a chance to make a tour final on Friday.

Santoro and Dancevic have met twice on the ATP World Tour with the Frenchmen owning a 2-0 lead. The last time the pair met was on grass (Newport 2007) which Santoro won in three sets.

Dancevic will need to keep the points short, and avoid long rallies with Santoro. If Fabrice is given the opportunity to take the points past four strokes, he will slice Dancevic up into pieces in straights.

Elsewhere, matches that are still to come on Day Five action in Eastbourne will see: second seed Dmitry Tursunov against Denis Istomin; Janko Tipsarevic taking on Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain. The winner of these two encounters will face each other in the last of the two semifinals on Friday.

's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands — Ordina Open

Spanish disaster

Just when we thought David Ferrer had this weeks title in Holland all locked up, the third seed was bounced in convincing fashion today by unheralded compatriot Ivan Navarro 6-4, 6-2.

While Ferrer was fumbling around center court today, he would have been best advised to have viewed his opponents career wins on grass prior to the coin toss. With a staging three wins on grass to his name (kidding of course), Navarro had by no means accumulated a legendary grass-court resume. But you wouldn't have thought that today.

Navarro had Ferrer going every which way during their encounter, employing more of a clay-court designed outlook to the match—surprisingly Ferrer could not keep up.

Navarro's numbers for the contest were not fantastic, but he certainly got the job done. His three aces, 70 percent of first serve points won and three breaks of serve, were not be match by Ferrer.

By contrast, David only managed to win 69 percent of first serve points (which is low for him) hit four aces, and failed on five break-point opportunities. The five missed chances to break the Navarro serve hurt Ferrer the most, with his return-of-serve being one of the best in the business.

The crisis of confidence which Ferrer is currently under-going will hopefully be figured out in a few days time, with The Championships overlooking the tennis world.

In the meantime, Navarro will head into the semifinals of the Ordina Open (his best grass-court finish to date), where he will meet Raemon Sluiter or Dudi Sela, who will be taking the court later on Day Five action.

Other matches that were completed on Thursday's action in Holland saw:

Benjamin Becker pound his way through Michael Llorda of France 7-6 (8-6), 7-5; fourth seed Rainer Schuettler grind past Jeremy Chardy 7-6 (9-7), 3-6, 7-6 (11-9) in 2:29 minutes.

Becker used his boom-boom (no Boris Becker reference of course) serve to stay toe-to-toe with Llodra who has a hefty serve of his own. The final ace count for these two rocket launchers: Becker (14); Llodra (10).

Becker was also able to obtain one more break of serve over his French opponent today. Becker also sealed his second straight quarterfinal or better in as many weeks. Match time: 1:29 minutes.

Rainer Schuettler also did himself proud today by escaping the French flair of Jeremy Chardy to set-up a German semifinal showdown with Becker.

Schuettler has not been in the best of form as of late.

He was destroyed in his last clay-court match of the year by Marc Gicquel love, love and four, at the French Open. A week before that in Germany no-less Robin Soderling threw in a double-bagel him in Dusseldorf. That's a lot to overcome, for any player.

But with a hard work ethic and a grinder-by-blood mentally, Schuettler managed to pick himself up and has found himself in an ATP World Tour semifinal.

The win could not have come at a better time for the German with his semifinal points at Wimbledon to defend. Those points are the very essence as to why Rainer is still ranked in the top 30 in the world. An earlier exit at SW19 could lead a quick a frustrated foot into retirement.

Nevertheless, Schuettler's win over Chardy, which took 2:29 minutes to complete, showcased the years of experience the German had over his young French opponent.

Chardy actually won two more points in the contest over Schuettler, with the German, "winning the big points."

Becker and Schuettler have met once on the ATP World Tour, which was just last week in Halle. Becker ended up winning that affair 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, with the younger German being the odds on favorite once again.

Please check back as I will have a semifinal wrap-up from both Eastbourne, Great Briton — AEGON International and 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands — Ordina Open.

You can catch Nima daily at: http://tennisconnected.com/

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