Tomas Berdych has advanced through to the semi-finals of the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships courtesy of a 6-3 4-6 6-2 victory over Sergiy Stakhovsky.
The fourth seed broke his opponent's serve on two occasions in the opening set to race ahead, although he was soon pegged back in a tightly-contested second.
The set went the way of serve up until the 10th game when Stakhovsky, ranked at number 53 in the world, broke to level things up overall against the Czech.
A meeting with either Novak Djokovic or Marsel Ilhan awaited the victor of this contest, and it was Berdych who used his experience to take the deciding set with relative ease.
Two breaks of serve paved the way for a 6-2 triumph and a place in the next round of the tournament, with the 29-year-old serving three aces in the final set to put himself in good stead for the final four.
Daniel Lewis
