WINSTON-SALEM, North Carolina — Defending champion John Isner and top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga had straight-sets victories Thursday to set up a semifinal match in the Winston-Salem Open. Second-seeded Tomas Berdych and seventh-seeded Sam Querrey also won their quarterfinals at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex in the final hard-court tournament before the US Open. Isner had 21 aces in beating Belgian David Goffin 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, while the sixth-ranked Tsonga needed only 53 minutes to dispatch sixth-seeded Spaniard Marcel Granollers 6-1, 6-2. Berdych, ranked seventh in the world, beat Belgium's Steve Darcis 4-6, 6-2, 6-0, and Querrey topped fourth-seeded Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3). American Isner had 12 aces in the first set against Goffin, who saved four break points in the set to force the tiebreaker. But Isner had four aces in the tiebreaker, and got a key mini-break on the seventh point. Isner then broke Goffin's serve in the fifth game of the second set, and closed out the set and match with another service break. “I was pressing a little bit in that first set,” said Isner, 2-1 against Tsonga, including a Davis Cup victory last April. “I was waiting for him to lose the set or make a mistake on a big point rather than me going after the ball. But I was happy with the way I played in the tiebreaker, and I played much better in the second set.” Wozniacki advances In Connecticut, four-time defending champion Caroline Wozniacki advanced to the semifinals of the WTA New Haven Open Thursday but a slight right knee injury put a damper on the celebration. The Danish third seed, who is set to be the eighth seed in next week's US Open, defeated Slovakia's Dominika Cibulkova 6-2, 6-1 in the quarterfinals and remained unbeaten at New Haven, improving to 20-0. But Wozniacki felt a twinge in her right knee during the first game of the second set and called for a trainer. Wozniacki is scheduled to face Russian seventh seed Maria Kirilenko, who beat Olga Govortsova of Belarus 6-1, 6-2 in another quarterfinal. In the other half of the draw, second-seeded Petra Kvitova swept past Lucie Safarova, 6-3, 6-3. Vinci to face Jankovic In Texas, Italy's Roberta Vinci advanced to her first final of the season by overpowering Bojana Jovanovski 6-0, 6-0 at the WTA Tour's Texas Open Thursday. The third seeded Vinci advanced to Friday's final, where she will face second seed Jelena Jankovic who also won in straight sets, 7-5, 6-4 over Aussie Casey Dellacqua. — Agencies
