Fish finds a way past eager Harrison in LA

Jul 30, 2011, 23:53 GMT

Los Angeles - Mardy Fish fought off comeback artist Ryan Harrison 6-0, 4-6, 7-6 (7-3) to beat the young American for the second straight week in a semi-final with victory at the Farmers Classic on Saturday.

Fish, last weekend's Atlanta champion who defeated the 19-year-old Harrison at that event, will await a finals opponent from Latvia's Ernests Gulbis and American Alex Bogomolov, competing at age 28 in the first ATP semi of his career.

Harrison is the first American teenager to reach back-to-back ATP semi-finals since Andy Roddick in 2002 and now stands 0-7 against Top 10 players.

Fish, at number nine the leading US contender, gave away a decade to Harrison. But the veteran had to fight for victory after a runaway opening set completed in 20 minutes.

Harrison broke in the second for 5-4 and levelled the sets at one each as Fish double-faulted for a set point and then fired a forehand wide.

The final set remained tight, with Fish going up an early break for 2-1 only to lose it for 3-all. It took a tiebreaker to end the deadlock, with Fish racing away to 5-0 and finally prevailing in two hours, 12 minutes with a seventh ace on match point.

'I had a clean first set, probably the cleanest I could ever hope for,' said the winner, now 29-14 on the season as he closes in on a seventh career trophy, 'Ryan has great promise - if he were a stock I'd buy him.'

'He fought hard in the second set, he could have won the match. In the third we played close, I was lucky to get some luck in the tiebreaker.'

Fish is unworried by his final opponent, whomever it might be. 'Any time a guy gets to a final,' he's playing well. 'But I'm feeling very good about my game. Either guy will be tough, there are no easy outs.'

Fish was playing his fifth semi-final of the season and has now won tenth career match in his hometown of Los Angeles, ending with 29 winners and the same number of unforced errors. dpa bs pr Author: Bill Scott

Read more about US