Tabara shocks Pioline, enters semis

The last of the seeded players on view in the ATP Gold Flake Indian Open, third seed Cedric Pioline of France crashed out in the quarter-finals on Friday, leaving four unseeded players to vie for honours.

Pioline lost 4-6, 1-6 to Michal Tabara (Cze). The Frenchman becomes the eighth seeded player to be upset by lesser-known opponents.

The others who crashed out earlier are top seed Magnus Norman, second seed Franco Squillari, fourth seed Byron Black, sixth seed Vinciguerra, seventh seed Markus Hantschk and eight seed Jiri Vanek.

Defending champion and fifth seed Jerome Golmard had pulled out late on Thursday after conceding his match to Adrian Voinea.

In another quarter-final match, Tommy Robredo of Spain beat qualifier Cyril Saulnier of France 6-2, 6-1.

While Tabara's reward for the defeat of the third-seeded Frenchman was a semi-final place against Danish qualifier Kristian Pless, who beat Romania's Adrian Voinea 6-1 7-5, Robredo will take on Andrei Stoliarov, who dropped the first set but rallied to beat Peter Wessels of the Netherlands 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.

This is the first time in the history of the Gold Flake ATP tour tennis championship that four unseeded players are battling for the title.

Pioline, who was sluggish from the start, gave an impression that he was staging a comeback. But Tabara played well and with his doublehanded backhand returns passed Pioline often to win.

Tabara's forehand helped him secure a break in the opening game of the first set as Pioline double faulted twice.

However, Pioline broke back in the fourth game for a 2-2 score but the Frenchman was still to get into his rhythm and made a hash of things to be broken in the fifth game. After taking a 4-2 lead, Tabara held his serves to take the set (6-4).

In the 27-minute second set, Pioline committed many errors, making it easy for Tabara.

After the rivals held the first two games, Pioline managed to save two break points in the third and in fact had the advantage once before losing the game after a long deuce. He had a chance to break back in the very next but Tabara came up with two passing shots on his backhand and then forced Pioline to volley out.

Tabara, who eliminated top seed Yevgeny Kafelnikov, in the first round last year, further improved on his play. Finally, he secured the break in the seventh, producing three winners and when Pioline's return sailed long, he had won the set and match.

In the Robredo-Saulnier match, the former started the match with a break and then led 5-2, clinching Saulnier's seventh game, and held his eighth for the set.

Robredo, who never dropped a game in the second set, had breaks in the first, third, and seventh games, to win the match.

Late on Thursday, giant-killer Taylor Dent, who had beaten Magnus Norman inthe first round, crashed out, losing to Kristian Pless 7-6 (9), 4-6.

In the doubles, the Black brothers, Byron and Wayne, began their doubles campaign with a 6-2, 6-0 victory over Uzbek V Kutsenko and A Qureshi from Pakistan.