Ernests Gulbis first name in Barcelona Open semi-finals

Barcelona Open ninth seed Ernests Gulbis has booked his place in the semi-finals of this year's competition with a 6-1 6-4 win over Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia.

Gulbis cruised into the match, breaking serve with his first two chances to go into a 5-0 lead. Gabashvili finally got on the board in the sixth but it was too late as Gulbis wrapped up the opener in just 26 minutes.

The Latvian looked to get into his opponent from the word go and it took every inch of Gabashvili's defensive skills to hold off three break points in the opening game of the second set to hold on.

It went with serve until 2-2, which was when the Gulbis pressure became too much for the Russian and he was broken to 30 to give the Latvian a huge chance and, despite having to hold off a break point at 5-4 he held his nerve to advance.