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Top seed Juan Martin Del Potro continues to look in good shape for the men's Open title after sweeping aside in-form Serbian Viktor Troicki in straight sets yesterday.
Del Potro will face fourth seed Robin Soderling in today's Heineken Open semifinal after the Swede dispatched big-serving American qualifier John Isner 6-4, 6-4 last night.
The Argentinian world No9 had expected a tough encounter against Troicki, who had dispatched his countryman Juan Monaco in a gruelling three setter on Wednesday. But Troicki again struggled in the heat and Del Potro eased to a 6-3, 6-2 victory in 1hr 23mins.
Del Potro's serve was the dominant force in the match. He connected with 72 per cent of his first serves to Troicki's 47 per cent.
"I played much better than yesterday," Del Potro said.
"I served good and didn't give any chance to Troicki. I am surprised because Troicki is a very good player. But he was tired. Yesterday he played for three hours and it was easy for me.
"I have to continue playing like today if I want to win the tournament."
Playing as the top seed for the first time in his career, Del Potro said he didn't feel under any extra pressure to perform.
"I just want to play tennis. At the moment I am [in the] top 10 and I have to have good tournaments to keep improving.
"If I want to be top five or I want to beat Nadal or Federer I need to serve better and move faster."
Del Potro had to wait to discover who his opponent would be but he said he said he would need to play the same way to beat either of them.
"Soderling and Isner are both good servers. I need to be focused in my returns and in my service [games] also because if I lose my serve I will lose the match."
After an incredible sequence of matches on Wednesday when all eight second-round matches went to three sets and play on centre court went close to midnight, yesterday proved an anticlimax.
Defending champion Philipp Kohlschreiber forfeited his quarter-final against David Ferrer, while Del Potro and American Sam Querrey advanced in straight sets.
Querrey today faces Ferrer after comfortably seeing off fourth seed Nicolas Almagro.
After struggling past Gilles Muller on Wednesday in match where he frequently lost his cool, Querrey was in serene mood against Almagro.
He described himself as a "new person".
"I told myself my main goal was to have fun, have a positive outlook no matter what was happening," he said.
The Spaniard had no answer to Querrey's unerring serve and didn't see a single break point.
"I started off trying to hit the ball pretty much as hard as I could for the first four games. I think you've got to do that sometimes to get the nerves out of the way. I just served really well and competed hard.
"It was one of my better matches, probably one of my top ten matches."
Almagro couldn't say the same. His frustration finally boiled over late in the second set when he smashed a ball out of the ASB Tennis Centre and moments later he double-faulted on match point.
