Benoit Paire cruises into Rome Masters semi-finals

Benoit Paire has thrashed Marcel Granollers in straight sets to become the first man through to this year's Rome Masters semi-finals.

After narrowly holding his opening serve Paire broke the Spaniard with his very first attempt and raced into a 5-0 lead.

Granollers finally showed some fight by holding to love for 5-1, but the damage had been done and Paire took the opener 6-1 in 25 minutes.

In a battling opening game in the second, Granollers fought back from 0-40 but was eventually broken.

Granollers just could not find his serve as he proceeded to be broken in every game of the final set and, despite taking the final game to deuce, had no answer to his French opponent, Paire going through 6-1 6-0.