Haas obliterates Rochus

German Tommy Haas needed just 49 minutes to demolish Belgian Olivier Rochus 6-0 6-2 and reach the Dubai Open semi-finals.

Fresh off of his title at the Memphis Open the German was utterly dominant in both sets taking multiple Love-service games.

"It's one of those days where everything seemed to work pretty well," Haas told Eurosport after the victory, saying that he had taken some time overnight to recover from his visit to Memphis last week.

"I got a little bit more rest last night," Haas said. "It is what it is, every time you get to play more matches it feels better and that's certainly what it was today.

"It's not so windy today, and I just had a better rhythm."

Haas said that if Roger Federer manages to get past the young Serbian Djokovic, he looks forward to facing the world number one in the next round.

"Let's see how he does tonight, [but] I looking forward to playing him every time, like most of us, and the way I'm playing right now it should be a pretty interesting match," he commented.

Earlier, Sweden's Robin Soderling earned his place in the semi-finals defeating France's Fabrice Santoro 6-1 6-7 (2-7) 6-0.

After dominating the opening set by winning the first five games, Soderling led 3-1 in the second before the wily Santoro staged a fightback.

Santoro mixed up his game to keep the Swede guessing and took the tie-break, but he then dropped his serve in the second game of the final set.

He had the opportunity to recover in the next game, but failed to convert four break points.

"I think I started off the match really, really well and played some great tennis for one-and-a-half sets," Soderling said.

"But that's the way Santoro plays. He makes you play bad and he really made me play bad today.

"You really have to stay focused all the time, but against a player like Fabrice it's even more important. He plays like no other on the tour. No point is the same. He's coming to the net, he's hitting dropshots, he's hitting slice, short, long, everything, so you get no rhythm at all. He's a tough guy to play."

Soderling will face the winner of Thursday's late quarter-final between defending champion Rafael Nadal and Russian Mikhail Youzhny.

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