Henman reaches first Tour semi-final

Tennis

Tim Henman beat his Davis Cup colleague, Mark Petchey, 6-1, 7-6 in the quarter-finals of the Shanghai Open yesterday to reach the semi-finals of an ATP Tour event for the first time.

The 21-year-old second seed, No 84 in the world, is now almost almost certain to climb into the top 70 in the rankings to be announced later this month, even if he makes no further progress. Henman will play the No 6 seed, Andrei Olhovskiy, probably tomorrow.

The top seed, Jeff Tarango, beat Danny Sapsford 5-7, 6-0, 6-3 in the second round, his second successive victory over a British player. Tarango beat Jeremy Bates in straight sets in the first round on Tuesday.

Monica Seles, showing no after-effects of the shoulder injury which forced her out of the doubles, cruised into the quarter-finals of the Pan Pacific indoor tournament in Tokyo. Seles, playing her first match since she won the Australian Open, defeated the unseeded Romanian Irina Spirlea 6-4, 6-2 in 65 minutes. Seles takes on the eighth seed, Iva Majoli, in the next round. Majoli defeated Brenda Schultz-McCarthy 7-6, 7-5.

In other second-round matches, the 15-year-old Swiss Martina Hingis easily defeated Ai Sugiyama, beating the unseeded Japanese 6-0, 6-3. Hingis next meets Naoko Sawamatsu, who surprisingly beat the No 4 seed, Kimiko Date, on Wednesday.