Arthurs serves Paes out of title race

Arthurs moved into a semi-final meeting with American Chris Woodruff, who defeated Stefano Pescosolido 6-2, 6-4. The semi-finals featuring all unseeded players will also include Laurence Tieleman against Kenneth Carlsen.

Arthurs, who reached the fourth round at Wimbledon before losing to Andre Agassi — the only player to break his serve in the last 10 matches — has won all 43 of his service games in the tournament, hitting 48 aces and facing just one break point.

That break point was in the seventh game of the third set. Trailing 4-2, Paes was desperate for abreakthrough against Arthurs’ raw power. After Arthurs failed to get the first serve in, Paes sensed a chance and cheated to the left, thinking the Australian would hit a safe, kick serve away from the centre line. “I could have sworn he was going to go there,” Paes said. Instead, Arthurs hit a hard serve down the middle, frustrating Paes with the most timely ace of the day.

Like Arthurs, Paes did not have his service broken heading into the quarter-finals. Rather than power, he relied on placement and grass-court bounces. His serving streak ended in the fourth game of the third set when he mistakenly thought a ball was going to land out.

Paes said he lost focus and tried to make too many great shots in the second-set tie-breaker and early games of the third set because Arthurs had been serving so well. Paes, who had 151 points to defend and managed only 43, loses 108, and should now drop to around 130 when the new rankings are released next week. He was 102 this week.

With his Wimbledon and Newportperformances, Arthurs’ world ranking will jump inside top 100.

RESULTS

Singles quarter-finals: Chris Woodruff (US) bt Stefano Pescosolido, Italy, 6-2, 6-4; Wayne Arthurs (Aus) bt Leander Paes (Ind) 6-7 (9-7), 7-6 (7-3), 6-3; Laurence Tieleman (Ita) bt Andrew Ilie (4-Aus) 7-6 (7-4), 6-4; Kenneth Carlsen (Den) bt Peter Wessels (Neth) 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (7-5).

Doubles semi-finals: Sargis Sargsian (Arm)/Chris Woodruff (US) bt Neville Godwin (SAF)/Michael Hill (Aus) 6-4, 6-7 (7-5), 7-5. Quarter-finals: Wayne Arthurs (Aus)/Leander Paes (Ind) bt Mose Navarra/Stefano Pescosolido (Ita) 6-7 (7-4), 7-6 (7-3), 7-5.

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