Four becomes two Friday, as the semifinals of the third annual PBZ Zagreb Indoors take the court.
The first semifinal pits unseeded Simone Bolelli against lucky loser Sergiy Stakhovsky. Bolelli is playing in his first career ATP singles semifinal; in fact, before this tournament he hadn’t even been to the quarterfinals of an ATP main draw, passing the second round once in 22 events (reaching the third round at AMS Miami last year before falling to David Ferrer).
Bolelli was 1-4 this season before this week, falling first round three times and reaching the second round once, at the Australian Open (falling to eventual champion Novak Djokovic); he has improved to 4-4 on the season with three straight-set wins this week (including over No. 5 seed Marin Cilic).
Stakhovsky is also playing his first career ATP singles semifinal; he did reach a quarterfinal before on the ATP circuit, at Milan in 2005 (falling to Robin Soderling). Apart from that run he has fallen in the first or second round at all seven of his other career ATP main draws.
Stakhovsky is playing his first ATP event of the season and is now 3-0 after a trio of three-set wins (including over No. 2 seed Ivo Karlovic and No. 8 seed Janko Tipsarevic). In his only previous event of the year, at the Wroclaw Challenger, he reached the quarterfinals (falling to Bolelli).
The second semifinal pits top seed Ivan Ljubicic against unseeded Mario Ancic.
Ljubicic has a sparkling record at this event and now has a chance to become a three-time finalist. He won the tournament in its inaugural year in 2006 (beating Stefan Koubek in the final) and was the runner-up in its second year in 2007 (falling to Marcos Baghdatis in three sets in the final). Now with three more wins so far this week, he is an impressive 12-1 lifetime at the event.
Ljubicic is 19-17 lifetime in ATP singles semifinals, going on to win eight titles (most recently last year at Doha and ‘s-Hertogenbosch) and finish runner-up 11 times (including twice last year).
Ljubicic had a strong start to 2008, reaching the semifinals at Doha (falling to Stanislas Wawrinka), but has fallen first round in his two ATP main draws since (at the Australian Open and Rotterdam).
Ancic is playing his 17th career ATP singles semifinal, going 10-6 in his first 16 and going on to win three titles (‘s-Hertogenbosch in 2005 and 2006 and St. Petersburg in 2006) and finish runner-up seven times (most recently two weeks ago at Marseille, where he fell to Andy Murray in the final).
Ancic missed six months of last season (between February and August) with mononucleosis and missed the entire Australian season of this year as well, this time with a stomach illness; in his first event of the season he reached the aforementioned final at Marseille two weeks ago (see above).
The second doubles semifinal, pitting No. 2-seeded pairing Christopher Kas and Rogier Wassen against No. 4 seeds Yves Allegro and Alexander Peya, will also take the court today. The winners will take on top seeds Paul Hanley and Jordan Kerr in the final on Saturday. (ATP Digital Services)
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