Top seed Andy Roddick beat Mardy Fish 7-6, 1-6, 7-5 in the quarter-finals of the San Jose Open on Friday but James Blake lost in straight sets to Robby Ginepri.
Roddick will face Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who fought off three match points to defeat big-serving John Isner 7-6, 6-7, 7-6, while Ginepri will go up against fourth seed Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic, who took care of Lu Yen-hsun 6-2, 7-6.
Roddick struggled to get past Fish, who returned his serve beautifully and consistently attacked the net.
Ahead 6-4 in the first set tiebreaker, Fish committed a forehand error and then watched Roddick produce three brilliant winners to win it 8-6.
Fish came back in the second set when Roddick suffered a meltdown. Roddick also received a code violation for lobbing a ball across the court and into the stands.
The two slugged it out in the deciding set before Fish missed an easy backhand volley and forehand down the line to lose the match.
"There wasn't much between us," Roddick said.
"I'm close to playing well and I feel like it's just around the corner. I'm confident in tough situations and I feel like I'm hitting the ball well."
Fish felt that match was within his grasp.
"I'm pretty disappointed," he said.
"Winning matters a ton. I'm not 21 anymore, looking for experience. That's long gone. I know I had some chances. Going deep in these tournaments would mean a lot."
Ginepri delivered a 6-2, 6-2 victory over second seed Blake, who had beaten him in the semi-finals of Delray Beach last week.
"From start to finish the whole night was explosive and I attacked the entire match," said Ginepri.
"In an hour-long match, there's usually a few games where I lose focus, but I felt tonight that James didn't usually have an edge at me at all.
"You wait for matches like this, but you are never sure they are going to come."
