Second seed Mardy Fish moved through to the semifinals of the Kroger St. Jude in Memphis for the first time after a hard-fought three-set win over Dmitry Tursunov. Fish, who reached the final of the Siebel Open last week, recovered from the loss of the second set to win 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 in 1 hour, 50 minutes.

With Joachim Johansson awaiting the winner after his straight-set victory over Xavier Malisse earlier in the day, it was Fish who got off to the better start against Tursunov, who reached the quarterfinals at the Racquet Club in his first ATP main draw in 2001.

Fish, the 22-year-old who also was a quarterfinalist last year, had lost the first set in each of his previous matches en route to the last eight. But the American broke to lead 4-2 in the opening set after Tursunov double faulted on break point. After holding on for the first set, the second went with serve until the 10th game, when Tursunov produced some good returns to create his first break point opportunity on the Fish serve, which he converted to level the match at one set all.

There was little to choose between them in the decider as both players produced stunning winners from the baseline. At 3-3, some unforced errors from the American-based Russian cost him dearly as he lost his serve and, despite putting some pressure on Fish as he served for the match at 5-4, it came to no avail as the American booked his place in the semifinal with three of his 18 aces in the final game.

"Today was no different from the other two rounds, just get through it," said Fish. "It wasn't my best tennis but at times, when I needed to play well, I did. Maybe that's a tribute to Dmitry's game and how he's playing. He makes you hit tough shots because he hits the ball so hard. Today was no different.

"I'm that much closer to my goal, which is to win the tournament. But I'm a long way away, there's still two more matches to go. I definitely want to get a piece of Andy again if he can get there too, and if I can get there, but I've got a big, big hurdle in front of me - a 6'6" hurdle."

Form

There he will meet another player in prime form in Johansson, the big-serving Swede who is appearing in his first career ATP semifinal.

The 21-year-old, who is yet to lose his serve this week, fired down 15 aces to take his tally to 55 for the tournament. His 6-4, 7-5 victory over Malisse came with the aid of two breaks at the end of each set as the Belgian struggled to come to terms with Johansson's increasingly impressive game.

"It feels pretty good to be in my first ATP semifinal," said Johansson. "This was my third quarterfinal and I lost a pretty close one to Roddick last week [in San Jose], so it feels pretty good."

Malisse said: "My goal was to get the return into play but I didn't get that many back today. There's not much I can say. I served pretty good on my serves but it's a little easier for him because he can go for more on my serve and he's got nothing to lose in the next game on his own serve. It's tough playing like that you don't get much rhythm and you have to serve yourself after he serves for one minute. You're always on the defensive side and he just played too good today."

In the top half of the draw, eighth seeded German Nicolas Kiefer advanced to his first semifinal since Long Island last August with a 6-3, 6-2 victory over Jan-Michael Gambill. Kiefer, making his first appearance in Memphis, ended a six-match losing streak after in his first round against Eric Taino, and has not looked back since. The 26-year-old, who had a 1-4 record against Gambill going into the quarterfinal, needed just 72 minutes to advance to the last four, where he will meet either top seed Andy Roddick or Thomas Enqvist.

"It's been a while since I won a few matches in a row," said Kiefer. "I was very happy with my game today. I've played better and better match by match, and I think each time you win, you feel good. I had a bad start this year, I didn't win any matches even though I played okay. You get confidence by just winning matches. I've played well here in the States and so far it's going well."