ROTTERDAM, NETHERLANDS—Canada’s Milos Raonic advanced to the semifinals at the World Tennis Tournament with a three-set win over Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky on Friday.

Raonic, from Thornhill, Ont., came back from a tough start and fired five of his six aces in the decisive third set in a 2-6, 6-3, 6-4 win over Stakhovsky.

The second-seeded Raonic will face Switzerland’s Stan Wawrinka in Saturday’s semifinal round. Wawrinka advanced with a 7-6 (3), 6-3 quarter-final win over Gilles Muller of Luxembourg.

Earlier Friday, Gilles Simon secured his first win over top-seeded Andy Murray in nearly eight years to set up a semifinal with defending champion Tomas Berdych.

Since Simon’s previous win over Murray in 2007 on clay at the Rome Masters, the Frenchman had lost 12 matches against the former Wimbledon champion.

Simon saved four of the six break points he faced, and capitalized on Murray’s unforced errors to win 6-4, 6-2 on his third match point.

Earlier, Berdych escaped unscathed from a heavy fall and romped to a 6-1, 6-4 victory over another Frenchman, Gael Monfils. The Czech hit a flurry of baseline winners and served extremely well, winning 88 per cent of the points on his first serve.

The third-seeded Berdych needed just 23 minutes to seal the first set, and broke for 2-1 in the second soon after calling the trainer to have his left wrist checked following his tumble when chasing a drop shot.

“It was a nasty fall,” Berdych said. “I’ll have to see how it evolves, but hopefully I will fully recover for the semifinals.”

Monfils attended to the hard-hitting Czech after he slipped, stepping across the net to help him back on his feet, and picking up his racket.

“The score may give the impression it was an easy victory, but it was a tough fight,” Berdych said. “I really had to go all out.”

Berdych has been in impressive form since the start of the year under the helm of new coach Dani Vallverdu, reaching the final in Doha before making the Australian Open semifinals.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Read more about: