Richard Gasquet squeezes past Ivo Karlovic to reach Basel semi-finals

Richard Gasquet has advanced to the semi-finals of the Swiss Indoors tournament in Basel with a battling three-set victory over Ivo Karlovic.

Gasquet, the fifth seed, broke big-serving Karlovic in the third game of the match and that was all he needed to close out the opener 6-4.

That would be the only break of the whole contest and, as many sets against Karlovic do, the second and third both went to tie-breaks.

Croat Karlovic, who had missed out on a set point earlier in the second set, took the match to a decider by winning the first breaker 7-2 thanks to a run of seven straight points.

In the deciding tie-break it was much closer and Karlovic missed out on a match point at 6-5 before Gasquet took his first one at 7-6 to reach the last four.

The Frenchman, who has now won his last four matches against Karlovic, will face either Marin Cilic or Rafael Nadal in tomorrow's semis.