Roddick beats Nadal to reach Dubai semis

By Barry Wood in Dubai

DUBAI (Reuters) - Andy Roddick did not appear to be missing the services of a coach during his 7-6 6-2 quarter-final victory over Spanish second seed Rafael Nadal in the Dubai Championships on Thursday.

The sixth-seeded American, who said he had parted ways with his coach Jimmy Connors, will next face third seed Novak Djokovic after the Serbian swept aside Russia's Igor Andreev 6-2 6-1.

The other semi-final will be between fifth seeded Russian Nikolay Davydenko, who defeated Britain's Andy Murray 7-5 6-4, and unseeded Feliciano Lopez.

Lopez upset fellow Spaniard and fourth seed David Ferrer 6-4 6-3.

Roddick placed Nadal under pressure from the start, holding serve with the first of his 17 aces and then forced Nadal to save four break points to level at 1-1.

With both players refusing to cave in and saving numerous break points, the set headed into a tiebreak.

Nadal swiftly took a 3-0 lead but Roddick fired two successive aces to keep pace and eventually claimed it 7-5.

"I felt I was getting the best of him throughout the set, and then all of a sudden I'm down 3-0 in the tiebreaker pretty quick and that was a little discouraging," said Roddick.

Roddick surprisingly faced little resistance in the second. Nadal began to make far more errors and after Roddick broke twice to lead 4-1.

A 241 kph ace set up match point and he closed it with yet another ace.

'GREAT ATMOSPHERE'

"It's a fast court, the crowd was really into it and the atmosphere was great. I wasn't going to get better conditions for myself against Rafa. I knew that and tried to take advantage," said the former world number one.

Nadal admitted that Roddick's powerful serve had put his own game under pressure.

"You feel a lot of pressure when you are serving because if you lose any serve, the way he was serving tonight it's tough," said Nadal.

"But in a way I am not disappointed with my game tonight. I didn't play badly."