Marin Cilic into third semifinal of year in Zagreb

Defending champion Marin Cilic reached the semifinals of his third successive tournament this year when he edged compatriot Ivo Karlovic, 7-6 (6), 6-4 at the Zagreb Indoors on Friday.

Cilic improved his 2010 record to 13-1, with an eye on his second title of 2010 and the fifth of his career in his adopted hometown.

On Saturday, top-seeded Cilic will face third-seeded Austrian Juergen Melzer, who took more than two hours to defeat Illya Marchenko of Ukraine 3-6, 6-0, 7-5.

The two met three months ago, when Melzer defeated Cilic in the Vienna final for his second career ATP title.

Also, Michael Berrer of Germany ousted fourth-seeded Viktor Troicki of Serbia, 6-4, 6-3 and will play compatriot Philipp Petzschner, who defeated Lukas Lacko of Slovakia, 6-7 (1), 6-2, 6-2.

Cilic broke into the top 10 world rankings this week for the first time at No. 10, following victory in Chennai, India, and a semifinal run at the Australian Open.

In his first match against seventh-seeded Karlovic, Cilic withstood 24 aces and earned the only break in the match at the start of the second set.

Cilic conceded no break points and lost just seven points on his serve in each set of their quarterfinal.

Melzer lost the first set to Marchenko but then won nine consecutive games to get to a set-all and 3-0 up in the third.

Marchenko leveled, then lost another serve at 3-4 and broke Melzer again when the Austrian served for the match at 5-3. When the Ukrainian served to stay in the match at 5-6, Melzer produced some of his best shots to win the match.

Berrer will appear in his first ATP semifinal since 2007. He and Petzschner will meet for the first time.

Top seed Gael Monfils powered into the semi-finals of the South African Open with a 6-1 6-4 victory over Taiwan's Lu Yen-hsun Friday.

The Frenchman, ranked 13th in the world, swept past Lu in 56 minutes to set up a meeting with third seed Feliciano Lopez of Spain.

Lopez went through with a 7-6 6-3 triumph over American Rajeev Ram.

The other semi-final will be between second seed David Ferrer of Spain and Frenchman Stephane Robert, seeded eight.

Monfils took an early grip against Lu by breaking serve in the second game and he stayed on top as his opponent produced 33 unforced errors.

Lopez thumped 12 aces on the way to his 96-minute win over Ram.

Ferrer outclassed Indian Somdev Devvarman 6-1 6-3 to reach his second South African Open semi and Robert advanced to the last four of an ATP Tour event for the first time by dispatching Jamaica's Dustin Brown 7-6 6-3.

- with Reuters

- AP