Berdych, Del Potro score crushing Rotterdam wins

Feb 17, 2012, 15:32 GMT

Rotterdam, Netherlands - Second seed Tomas Berdych and number three Juan Del Potro stormed into the semi-finals of the ABN-AMRO World Tennis with thundering victories on Friday.

Berdych, who a year ago had to withdraw from his quarter-final at the Ahoy stadium due to a fever and hand over the win to Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, reached the last four this time around with his defeat of Italy's Andreas Seppi 6-3, 6-4.

Del Potro continued to impress in his debut at the event as he unleashed his lethal game on seventh seed Viktor Troicki 6-0, 6-1.

The Argentine won the first eight games before Troicki got a look in, but that was it for the Serb as Del Potro romped home unchallenged.

The South American who won the 2009 US Open and then suffered a 2010 wrist injury and needed a year of more after surgery and rehab, moved through in 61 minutes to next face Berdych. The pair are 2-2 in their series, with the Argentine winning the last two they played in 2009.

The other two quarter-finals feature top seed Roger Federer taking a 12-0 record into his match with Finn Jarkko Nieminen and French fifth seed Richard Gasquet playing Russia's Nikolay Davydenko.

Berdych, who won his eighth indoor match of the season, was bothered by the one game he lost on serve in the second set.

The quest for a perfect showing may have been damaged, but the Czech immediately recovered to run out the winner in 67 minutes.

'I played a good match but I'm not happy with that error,' said the world number seven. 'I was trying to keep my level high and I did it save that one game.

'But I still managed to win in two sets so it's all okay at the end.'