MUNICH, Oct 2: World number three Marcelo Rios won a close battle of baseliners, beating Spaniard Felix Mantilla 7-6, 7-5 to reach the semifinals of the Grand Slam Cup last night.Rios, the highest ranked player in the men's draw of the tournament for the best performers in the years's four Grand Slams, now faces an appetising clash with hard-hitting Australian Mark Philippoussis for a place in Sunday's final.Chilean Rios, a finalist at the Australian Open last January, needed a tie break, which he took 7-2, to claim the first set.French Open semifinalist Mantilla kept fighting in the second set until Rios used a rare backhand volley on match point to seal victory and make sure of at least $375,000 in prize money.Earlier, Philippoussis relied on his heavy artillery to down Swede Jonas Bjorkman, firing 13 aces on his way to a 4-6, 7-6, 6-1 quarter-final victory.Bjorkman countered the US Open finalist's missiles with brilliant returns to win the first set but Philippoussis moved up a gear inthe second, forcing a tie break which he took 7-1 with an ace on set point.From then on, the hard-hitting Australian was in a class of his own, firing winners almost at will to open up a 4-0 lead in the decisive set before seeing Bjorkman hit a forehand into the net on match point.For the first time since the Grand Slam Cup was created in 1990, women are also competing and there was a surprise on yesterday with France's Nathalie Tauziat dumping out US Open champion Lindsay Davenport.Wimbledon finalist Tauziat, 30, struggled with her serve, committing 12 double faults, but ran for every ball to clinch 4-6 6-1 7-5 win in a first round match.Ironically, though, she fired an ace to seal victory after one hour and 57 minutes.American Davenport, the world number two, looked firmly in control in the first set but she was then let down by her usually efficient serve and started making many unforced errors.Davenport will have no time to rest as she enters the Filderstadt tournament next week knowingthat a good showing in the German town could allow her to steal the number one spot from Martina Hingis.
