Third seed Sjeng Schalken of the Netherlands quelled a late charge from fifth seed Felix Mantilla of Spain with a 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 (6) win to move into the semifinals of the Tata Open ATP Tour Tennis championship at Chennai on Friday.
In a closely fought match, Schalken lost his way after winning the first set with ease as he encountered a strong challenge from Mantilla, but won a couple of big points in the tie-break of the decider to emerge unscathed.
Schalken awaits the winner of the other quarterfinal match between top seed Carlos Moya and Thierry Ascione.
Mantilla, who held a 3-2 edge in the head-to-head with Schalken before today's match, pulled himself into the match in the second set with an attacking game and was on course for causing an upset as he broke the Dutch man in the eighth game of the third set.
But, Schalken, on his third appearance here, won some huge points in the very next game to break the Spaniard to take the set to the tie-break which went to the wire.
With long rallies marking the latter part of the match, the tie-break too saw both the players keeping the ball in play from the base line and trying to attack whenever the chance came. Mantilla, who made some wonderful retrievals, saved one match point serving at 6-5, but hit a poor shot from the net to concede another, which the Dutch converted much to his relief.
Schalken, who moved into the quarterfinals with a fluent 6-3, 6-3 victory over qualifier Julian Knowle of Austria in a match which started past midnight last night and ended around 2.15 a.m. shone in patches from the latter part of the first set while his rival kept improving his game.
The Dutch wrapped up the first set in short time as he broke Mantilla in the first and third games while Mantilla seemed to have got his rhythm towards the end of set. The second set saw both content with holding their serves by playing from the baseline in long Rallies. Just as the set appeared set for the tie-break, in a sudden turn-around Mantilla broke his rival in the 12th game with brilliant winners to force the issue to the decider.
