Tennis: Henman holds off Ferreira

Tim Henman, the British No 1, will play Germany's David Prinosil in the semi-finals of the Czech Indoor tournament in Ostrava today.

He gained another superb victory when he beat the world No 7, Wayne Ferreira of South Africa, 6-4, 6-3 in yesterday's quarter-finals while Prinosil beat the American Todd Martin 7-6 7-6.

It was the sixth time this year that Oxford-born Henman, now based in London, has reached the semi-final of an ATP Tour event and he is certain to improve his world ranking of 26 when the next list is issued on Monday.

Apart from reaching the quarter-finals at Wimbledon and the last 16 at the US Open, Henman reached the semi-finals of the Shanghai tournament in January, in Rotterdam and Copenhagen in March, at Seoul in April and at Lyon in September.

Ferreira, ranked seventh in the world, never looked comfortable against Henman, the more aggressive of the two for most of the match. He failed to gain a single break point while the 22-year-old Briton broke serve late in both sets.

Henman's win avenged his loss to the South African in Toronto earlier this year, and he said he had taken notes from that match on to court.

"In Toronto, Ferreira was dictating the points - serving very well and hitting forehands very well - so today I tried to be very aggressive and, when I had an opportunity, move forward," Henman said.

For Martin, defeat was especially painful as he could have gained valuable ground on Ferreira in the race for the final spot at the ATP Tour championship in Hanover at the end of the season.

The American is 199 points behind the South African. A semi-final place would have eaten 37 points out of that lead, while a place in the final would have halved Ferreira's advantage.