Julien Benneteau
© Mike Baz

Benneteau Upsets Roddick in Thriller; Haas Earns Fifth Trip to Memphis SF

French qualifier Julien Benneteau continued his exceptional run at the Regions Morgan Keegan Championships, upsetting top seed and former Memphis champion Andy Roddick to set up a semifinal showdown with another former champion, Tommy Haas.

After splitting the first two sets and holding serve throughout the third, Roddick faced his third consecutive third-set tie-break in Memphis. He saved two match points against Mardy Fish on Tuesday and one against Wayne Arthurs on Wednesday, but failed to complete the hat trick as Benneteau's three match points proved insurmountable.

After Roddick saved the first match point with a winner down the line, Benneteau rifled his own winner on the next point to turn in the 3-6, 6-4, 7-6(4) victory - his first win over a Top 10 player.

The two players, who converted on a combined four of 19 break chances, met last month at the Australian Open. In that third round meeting, the American got the better of Benneteau, conceding only five points in the three-set win.

Benneteau defeated Yeu-Tzuoo Wang and eighth seed Xavier Malisse en route to Friday's quarterfinal, and will be appearing in his second career semifinal. In his other appearance at the 2004 Casablanca tournament, he bowed out the Slovak Dominik Hrbaty.

Meanwhile, Haas made his way into his third semifinal of the season earlier in the day as he defeated Russian Dmitry Tursunov 6-7(7), 6-4, 6-4.

The former World No. 2 broke to go up 5-4 in the third set when Tursunov hit a return wide, and then converted on his first of two match points when he nailed an ace.

Haas, who won the Memphis title in 1999, improved his event record to 18-6 with the victory. The German has a 1-3 record in Memphis semifinals, most recently falling to Mark Philippoussis at last year's tournament.

In his previous final four appearances this season, Haas fell in straight sets to Roger Federer in Doha and topped Vincent Spadea in Delray Beach en route to the title win.

Benneteau and Haas, who are both off to solid starts this season, will clash for the first time when they take Center Court Saturday afternoon.

The Frenchman has risen 45 ranking spots to No. 122 in the INDESIT ATP Rankings following his performance in Melbourne, and improves to 5-1 with his win Friday. Haas has moved up 16 spots to No. 30, and now sports a 15-3 season mark.

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