Coria reaches semis as Youzhny bothered by injury
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2005-09-17 11:57

Second seed Argentine Guillermo Coria won a lucky draw to make the semi-finals of the China Open ATP tournament here on Friday, as seventh seed Mikhail Youzhny's comeback run was snapped by a lower back injury when fighting back strongly and leading 1-0 in the decider.

The 23-year-old Youzhny, who is positioned 24th in the ATP Entry Rankings, stormed back into the match after losing the firstset 6-4 and beat the 6th-ranked Coria unanswered to 6-1 in the second set.

Breaking Coria in as early as the first game into the decider, Youzhny, who suffered a lower back sprain for a long time, was troubled by his injury and called the doctor for a five-minute treatment before being broken thrice to trail 5-1.

Bearing the pains on his back, the Russian's first serve percentage had declined to 50% after returning to the court, whileCoria kept 91% on serving, which led to a 6-1 easy win of the decider for the 23-year-old Argentine.

"The three minutes treatment for Youzhny is not bad for me but may be killing for my opponent. I benifit from it," said Coria.

"Now it's nothing serious, but it's really tough for me on the court. It has been a long time injury which ruled me out of many tournaments," said Youzhny.

With the victory, Coria improved his win-lose record against Youzhny to 5-2 and sets up a semi-final showdown on Saturday with Sweden's veteran Thomas Johansson, the fourth seed here who overcame eighth-seeded Spaniard Carlos Moya 7-6 (3), 6-3 earlier the day.

"Hardcourt is the favorite surface of Johansson, and it will bea difficult task for me to challenge the Swede. I must player better than today when facing Johansson," said Coria.

Keeping two matches in a day made Coria's schedule getting fullas his second round matchup against Japanese Toshihide Matsui had been postponed to Friday after rain halted Thursday's play on China Open.

"I just had a good lunch and calmed down for the later match," said Coria, who made brief work of Matsui 6-1, 6-0 at Friday noon.

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