Milos Raonic, Tomas Berdych and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga advance at Lyon Open
Thursday 25 May 2017 21:27, UK
Milos Raonic led the way as the top three seeds all progressed to the Lyon Open, last four, where he was joined by Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Tomas Berdych.
Top seed Raonic is playing himself back to form and fitness after his first part of the season was hampered by persistent hamstring trouble and he continued his serene progress into the semi-finals.
Having beaten Denis Istomin in straight sets in the second round, the Canadian produced a similarly dominant display to dispatch qualifier Gastao Elias 6-4 6-3 and advance to a showdown with third seed Berdych.
The Czech world no 14 was far too strong for fifth seed Gilles Simon in their quarter-final, Berdych coming through for the loss of just four games with a 6-4 6-0 victory that sees him into his third semi-final of the year.
Berdych has lost his previous two semi-finals this year and along with Raonic is chasing a first title of 2017.
In the other half of the draw, home favourite Tsonga delighted the fans with a 6-0 6-4 victory over Russian youngster Karen Khachanov in just 64 minutes.
Tsonga is chasing a third title of the year having already won in Rotterdam and Marseille and he will next face Georgia's world no 71 Nikoloz Basilashvili after he beat Argentinean qualifier Nicolas Kicker 6-3 6-1.
The top seeds did not have it quite so easy at the Geneva Open where Stan Wawrinka and Kei Nishikori had to battle back from a set down to book their places in the last four.
Wawrinka was up against American Sam Querrey and lost the first set 6-4 before falling a break down at 1-3 in the second set.
But the world no 3 rallied and produced some of his best tennis of the clay-court swing to prevail, eventually coming through 4-6 7-5 6-2 and advance to the semi-finals as he defends the title he won by beating Marin Cilic last year.
Next up for Wawrinka is Andrey Kuznetsov who ended the run of world number 314 Cedrik-Marcel Stebe in three sets
Nishikori came even closer to defeat, saving three match points against Kevin Anderson to book his place in the last four.
The second-seed is looking to put recent injury problems behind him and having accepted a late wild card into the event he progressed to a semi-final with Mischa Zverev who beat Steve Johnson 6-4 7-5.
At 0-40 on his own serve and trailing 4-5, Nishikori managed to turn the final set around, winning 2-6 6-4 7-6 in almost two-and-a-half hours of gripping tennis
