Nadal, Moya beaten, Malisse to meet Koubek for title

Chennai, Jan 6: It turne out to be an anti-climax as the Spanish Armada of world No two Rafael Nadal and two-time champion Carlos Moya were crushed by the French and Belgian assault of third seed Xavier Malisse and unseeded Stefan Koubek respectively in the semi-finals of the Chennai Open ATP Tennis Tournament here tonight.

While Nadal went down fighting Malisse 4-6, 6-7(4-7) in a 127-minute epic battle, Moya capitulated to the relentless onslaught of the unassuming Belgian losing 3-6, 1-6 in little over an hour.

The two upset wins came as a shocker to the packed crowd which returned home in disbelief.

A Nadal-Moya final seemed to be the icing on the cake for the week long tournament.

But it proved otherwise as Nadal played his heart out and ended up on the losing side and Moya, despite being egged on by the crowd, failed to live up to his reputation and caved in meekly.

It was an abject surrender by Moya after his superlative show in the tournament, especially in the quarters against the big serving Croatian Ivo karlovic yesterday.

The 27-year-old Spaniard struggled to cope with the hard and deep returns of 30-year-old Koubek, who played some solid tennis right through the game.

He kept the pressure on Moya as his hard double-fisted backhand returns and the forehand shots, which had both the pace and the direction, brooked no response. Though Moya showed signs of recovery playing the big points well with tight serves, he looked a pale shadow of the past. His returns were erratic and he committed far too many unforced errors.

He double faulted at crucial times and his occasional venture at the net backfired as Koubek passed him beautifully.

After struggling to hold serves in the second and sixth games, where he saved three break points, the Spaniard lost serve with a pair of errors.

He sank a backhand chip at the net at 15-30 and netted a low back hand off the next point. Though he saved one break point with a stinging serve, a long forehand gave the decisive break for the Belgian to wrap up the first set in 35 minutes.

It was Koubek all the way in the second as Moya held serve only once in the first game, that too after battling two break points.

From 1-1, the Belgian reeled off five games in a row with breaks in the third, fifth and seventh games with a forehand error landing Koubek a place in the final.



UNI