Federer, Davydenko in French Open semis

Paris -- World No. 1 Roger Federer claimed a quarterfinal victory Tuesday at the clay-court French Open tennis tournament in Paris.

Federer advanced to the semifinals of the one Grand Slam event he has never won, 7-5, 1-6, 6-1, 6-2. He will face fourth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko in the semis. He has never lost to Davydenko in eight career meetings,

Federer took the first set 7-5 to run his consecutive set string in Grand Slam events to 36 but was routed by ninth-seeded Tommy Robredo in the second set. Federer won just one game in the set and had his serve broken twice.

But that seemed to wake him up. He took the third set at 6-1 in 20 minutes and closed out the match with a 6-2 set win in another 29 minutes. Federer is 8-0 in his career against Robredo, who he beat in the quarterfinals en route to this year's Australian Open title.

Davydenko took a straight-set win from Guillermo Canas but it took a tough three hours to finish off the 7-5, 6-4, 6-4 victory.

The other men's quarterfinals set for Wednesday pitted two-time defending champion and No. 2-ranked Rafael Nadal against 23rd-seeded Carlos Moya and sixth-seeded Novak Djokovic playing unseeded Igor Andreev.

The French Open men's singles finals are scheduled for Sunday.

Copyright 2007 by United Press International.