Henman Finds Form; Roddick Moves On
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© Getty ImagesHenman flying high at Queen's.
Britain's Tim Henman moved through to the semifinals of the Stella Artois Championships for the fourth time in the last five years with a 6-1, 6-4 victory over Anthony Dupuis.
Henman, a three-time runner-up at The Queen's Club in 1999, 2001 and 2002, put together a run of three consecutive victories for the first time since reaching the semifinals at Wimbledon last year - a span of 16 tournaments.
"There was obviously a lot of improvement in my play today," said Henman. "I was much more consistent throughout. Apart from one suspect volley to lose my serve in the second set, I made very few errors and played some good tennis."
At Home
After saving a match point in his first round win over Davide Sanguinetti and needing three sets to overcome Cyril Saulnier, Henman looked much more at home on the grass against Dupuis, taking 1 hour, 22 minutes to book his place against Sebastien Grosjean - his third consecutive French opponent.
The No. 7 seed quickly raced out to a 5-0 lead in the first set and looked to be in full control, working his way to the net behind some effective serves to the body of Dupuis. But after taking the first set, Dupuis got an early break to lead 2-0 in the second set before Henman won the next four games and had two match points on the Dupuis serve at 5-3.
Two service winners from the Frenchman helped save those, but it only delayed the inevitable as Henman sealed victory with a forehand passing shot.
Despite the performance, Henman was playing down his chances of winning the title following the loss of Lleyton Hewitt, the man against whom he has lost in the last two finals. "Lleyton [Hewitt] lost but you still have Andre [Agassi] and [Andy] Roddick in the other half of the draw," said Henman. "So there's three other good players in the semis. But I fancy my chances, I'm pleased with the way I'm playing but there's still a lot of work to be done over the weekend."
Roddick's Revenge
Meanwhile, Andy Roddick avenged his loss to Taylor Dent in the final in Memphis earlier this year with a 6-3, 7-6(3) victory to set up a semifinal clash with Andre Agassi.
"Coming in, this is probably Taylor's best surface so I knew if I was going to win I was going to have to take my chances, and I did that today," said Roddick. "I think I played pretty good tennis."
On playing Agassi with Brad Gilbert as his new coach, Roddick added. "It's going to be a little bit weird for him, probably more so for Brad than it is for me. He has a long history with Andre, but they're still great friends so I'm sure it will be no big deal.
"We played a pretty good match in Houston, so to come here and play against him so quickly is pretty exciting. I feel better going into this match because before Houston I had lost to him by pretty bad scores, but last time it was pretty close."