Houston, April 15:

Fifth-seeded Tommy Haas of Germany beat No 1 seed Andy Roddick in a quarter-final at the US Men’s Clay Court Championship on Friday. Haas rallied from one set down to win 6-7

(1), 6-4, 6-4.

Roddick had two chances to break Haas in the final game, but he was unable to return Haas’ serve and got aced on the second opportunity. Haas closed out the match two points later. He hit a forehand winner that cleaned the line and a forehand by Roddick hit the net. Haas will play American Mardy Fish in semi-final.

Seventh-seeded Paul Goldstein of the US plays Austria’s Jurgen Melzer in the other semi-final.

Fish beat fellow American Vince Spadea, 4-6, 7-6 (1), 6-4 in a match that saw its share of service breaks. Goldstein struggled occasionally with his serve but he was steady enough to beat Albert Montanes of Spain 6-3, 6-4. Melzer gained the spot with a 7-5, 6-4 win over Fernando Vicente of Spain.

Family Circle Cup

CHARLESTON: Defending champion Justine Henin-Hardenne kept her perfect record in the Family Circle Cup in beating seventh-seeded Dinara Safina 6-4, 6-1 on Friday to advance to the semi-finals. The top-seeded Henin-Hardenne will meet Patty Schnyder, a 6-0, 6-3 winner over Nathalie Dechy, in semi-finals. Nadia Petrova of Russia cruised to a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Catalina Castano and advanced to face Anna-Lena Groenefeld of Germany. Groenefeld had a tougher time beating Russia’s Svetlana Kuznetsova 6-3, 7-6 (4) to reach the semi-finals of a top-tier tournament for the first time. Petrova, ranked No 7, needed just over one hour to beat the only unseeded player (Castano) to make it to the quarter-finals.

Valencia Open

VALENCIA: Marat Safin of Russia advanced to his first semi-finals since June when he ousted second-seeded Gaston Gaudio 6-4, 6-4 at the Valencia Open on Friday. Gaudio was serving at 3-3, 40-0 in the second set when Safin came back to break the Argentine. Safin, a wild card, then lost only one point on his next two service games to close out the match. Safin will meet qualifier Nicolas Almagro. Almagro beat second seeded player, toppling No 6 Filippo Volandri of Italy 6-4, 6-1, three days after putting out No 4 Juan Carlos Ferrero. The other semi-final featured seventh-seeded Fernando Verdasco against Gilles Simon of France. Verdasco beat Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-3 in an all-Spanish duel, and Simon defeated Andreas Seppi of Italy 7-6 (2), 7-6 (4) to reach his first ATP semi-finals of the season.