Raonic, Young advance to Washington semis

Raonic, Young advance to Washington semis

Wimbledon semi-finalist Milos Raonic advanced to a last-four matchup with upset-minded Donald Young after both won Friday matches at the ATP and WTA Washington Open.

Donald Young of the United States celebrates his win over Kevin Anderson of South Africia during the Citi Open at the William H.G. FitzGerald Tennis Center on August 1, 2014 in Washington, DC

Canadian second seed Raonic fired 16 aces with only a pair of double faults to defeat American Steve Johnson 7-6 (7/2), 6-2 while Young, on his best run in three years, outlasted South African seventh seed Kevin Anderson 3-6, 7-6 (7/3), 6-2.

"He's very talented and he's very dangerous," Raonic said of Young. "He neutralizes well. He defends well."

Later quarter-finals at the $1.9 million (1.4 million euro) hardcourt event send Japanese fourth seed Kei Nishikori against French sixth seed Richard Gasquet and Canada's Vasek Pospisil, who upset Czech top seed Tomas Berdych, against Colombia's Santiago Giraldo.

Raonic, seeking his sixth ATP title, took only 79 minutes to book his third semi-final appearance of the year after Rome, where he lost to top-ranked Novak Djokovic, and Wimbledon, where he fell last month to 17-time Grand Slam winner Roger Federer.

"I'm getting better and better," Raonic said. "I played the right way at the end of the sets. When I got the advantage I kept the intensity. I played consistently well from 5-5 in the first set.

"I've gotten better at knowing what I need to do. I step up in the tie-breakers and that has worked out well."

Johnson had ousted the ATP season ace leaders, John Isner and Ivo Karlovic, in his two prior matches but could not complete a giant-killer hat trick against the tour's third-best ace firer.

"Maybe next week I'll play somebody less than 6-foot-4 and have a chance to hit a return," Johnson said.

"It sucks watching the serve go by you 500 times. That's tennis."

Raonic lost only five points on his first serve and just nine on his second serve.

"It definitely took a toll the last three days knowing if I don't take care of my serve I'll lose. I just got tired mentally," Johnson said. "You have a bad 30-40 seconds, suddenly it's 6-3 and you don't know what happened."

Young's four-match win streak is his deepest main-draw run since reaching his only ATP final in 2011 at Bangkok, where he lost to Britain's Andy Murray.

"I'm just believing a little more. I'm staying in the matches more, not tapping out," Young said. "I'm still fighting and able to hang in there."

Anderson, who at 21st in the rankings was 52 spots higher than Young, had won all four prior ATP matches with the 25-year-old left-hander and had not been broken this week, a test of Young's new resilient attitude.

"I've been negative before and that hasn't worked," Young said. "Top players in the world stay positive and that's what I want to be. It's just starting to click in."

Japan's Kurumi Nara defeated France's Kristina Mladenovic 6-3, 6-1 to reach a semi-final against New Zealand's Marina Erakovic, who beat Serbian Bojana Jovanovski 6-4, 6-4.

Russian sixth seed Svetlana Kuznetsova, the 2004 US Open and 2009 French Open champion, won by walkover when American Vania King withdrew with a right hip injury.

Kuznetsova, who made her first WTA final since 2011 just four months ago at Oeiras, has a semi-final date with Russian second seed Ekaterina Makarova, who ousted fifth-seeded compatriot Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.

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