Lopez Upsets Berdych To Reach Aegon Semis
Second-seeded Tomas Berdych was knocked out of the Aegon Championships at The Queen’s Club in London on Friday, as tenth-seeded Feliciano Lopez pulled off the upset 6-4, 7-6(7) in a quarterfinal matchup.
The Spanish Lopez used a powerful serve to dispose of Berdych, smashing 13 aces over the course of the match. With the match in a third set tie break, Lopez managed to battle back from a 3-6 and 6-7 deficit to claim victory.
Berdych is the sixth ranked player in the world, giving Lopez his fist Top 10 win in almost a year as he moves into the semifinals. In his semifinal matchup, Lopez will tangle with 15th-seeded Radek Stepanek who defeated seventh-seeded South African Kevin Anderson.
A day after knocking out Andy Murray, Stepanek followed it up with a 1-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Anderson, reaching the semifinals at The Queen’s Club for the first time in nine years.
“It’s great to beat a top guy, but it’s even tougher to back it up with a win again,” said Stepanek after the match. “For a half hour I really had no chance. He hit every shot perfectly. I just had to wait until the first weaker moment and take my chance, which happened in the first of his service games in the second set. I got in front and ran through those two sets pretty comfortably.”
The Czech smashed 15 aces to expose a poor return game from Anderson to reach the semifinals of this event for the first time since 2005.
The other semifinal match will be between fourth-seeded Grigor Dimitrov and top-seeded Stan Wawrinka. Dimitrov received a walk-over into the semifinals after eighth-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov withdrew because of a right thigh strain.
Wawrinka cruised in his quarterfinal bout, defeating Australia’s Marinko Matosevic 7-5, 6-3 on Friday. After Wawrinka broke Matosevic at 3-3 in the first set, the Australian Open champion Wawrinka never looked back, winning the first set in a tiebreaker and capturing the second 6-3 for the straight set victory.
