5 Sep 2008

Nadal through to semi in New York

6:40 am on 5 September 2008

Rafael Nadal is through to his first US Tennis Open semi finals after beating American Mardy Fish in a game which finished at 2.10am in the morning.

Top seed Nadal won 3-6 6-1 6-4 6-2.

Nadal got off to a bad start, taking 18 minutes to win his first game after Fish raced to a 3-0 lead in the first set, which he lost.

But then Nadal took control, backing up his thunderbolt serves with ferocious groundstrokes. Nadal romped through the second and third sets.

When Fish dropped his serve in the third game of the fourth set, he reacted by sitting down and then spitting through the strings of his racket. Not satisfied, he then slammed it to turn it into a mangled mess.

Nadal will play Briton Andy Murray, the sixth seed, in the semis defending champion Roger Federer takes on Luxembourg qualifier Gilles Muller and later third seed Novak Djokovic will play 2003 champion and home favourite Andy Roddick.