Kohlschreiber pulls out of Vienna quarter with Melzer

VIENNA (AP)?Defending champion Jurgen Melzer reached the semifinals of the Bank Austria Trophy after Philipp Kohlschreiber pulled out with a strained groin shortly before their quarterfinal Friday.

The top-seeded Melzer, who was 0-3 in career matches against the German, next plays third-seeded Nicolas Almagro. The Spaniard defeated No. 8 Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina 7-5, 3-6, 6-3.

Almagro, who won two clay-court events over the summer, had nine aces and broke Chela four times to advance to his first hard-court semifinal this season.

Andreas Haider-Maurer joined fellow Austrian Melzer in Saturday?s semifinals after upsetting last year?s finalist and second-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia 7-6 (1), 6-4.

Haider-Maurer will play Michael Berrer of Germany, who beat fourth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 5-7, 6-1, 6-4.

Melzer was disappointed that he didn?t get to face Kohlschreiber.

?It?s a pity, I?d loved to play,? said the French Open semifinalist, who is ranked a career-high 12th. ?I would like to show on court who?s the best.?

Kohlschreiber was injured in a doubles match with fellow German Christopher Kas on Thursday.

?I made a wrong move and unfortunately things got worse overnight,? the seventh-seeded Kohlschreiber said. ?Doctors told me not to play so I had no other choice.?

Haider-Maurer continued his surprising run at the tournament by eliminating the 14th-ranked Cilic.

The 157th-ranked Austrian, who had before never reached the quarterfinals of an ATP event, lost in qualifying but entered the main draw after fifth-seeded Ernests Gulbis pulled out for personal reasons and then defeated both Thomas Muster and Andreas Seppi.

?A dream comes true,? Haider-Maurer said. ?I didn?t believe before the match that I could win it.?

Cilic, who won two ATP events this season, had an early break and was up 4-2 in the opening set, but produced a series of forehand errors as he started to lose control of the game.

Haider-Maurer leveled at 4-4, comfortably won the tiebreaker and managed a decisive break in the opening game of the second set.

Berrer dropped serve at 5-5 in the opening set on the only break point he faced in the entire match against Baghdatis.

The German dominated the second set before Baghdatis got treatment for a right shoulder injury at the start of the decider.

Berrer added another break and closed out the win on his first match point.

Source: http://feeds.tennis.com/~r/tenniscom-news/~3/kOT089rFXsU/

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