Top four seeds advance to semifinals in Bangkok

For the first time since 2004 when Roger Federer, Andy Roddick, Marat Safin and Paradorn Srichaphan did it, the top four seeds at the Thailand Open in Bangkok have advanced to the semifinals. This year the top four seeds advancing to the final four are, No. 1 Novak Djokovic, No. 2 Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (pictured), No. 3 Tomas Berdych and No. 4 Gael Monfils.

In roughly an hour and a half, Djokovic held off feisty Swedish star Robin Soderling, 6-4, 7-5. Both Monte Carlo based players had a great day serving on Friday, as Djokovic smashed nine aces and no double faults, while Soderling fired twelve aces compared to only two double faults. A three-time singles champion this year on tour including winning at the Australian Open, Djokovic was able to break serve on three of nine opportunities.

"I knew it would be a difficult match and I was prepared for that," said Djokovic. "He's a good powerful player. I knew they key was my first serve percentage and getting a lot of returns back."

Djokovic, the bronze medal winner at the Beijing Olympics in August, won his 57th match of the season by defeating the World No. 34. Soderling dropped to a horrific 9-27 lifetime against Top 10 players.

Next up for Djokovic is the Czech Republic’s Berdych, who took care of Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, 7-6(6), 6-3. The young Czech smashed 11 aces and only lost 11 points on his first serve, while breaking serve on two occasions. Berdych improves to 27-18 this season and now holds a 2-0 career edge against Mahut with the victory on Friday.

"I'm very happy with my game today," said Berdych. "I knew that he was playing very good tennis having some good wins this week. I'm looking forward to the semifinals; it's always nice to be able to play a match at that stage of a tournament."

The semifinal meeting between Djokovic and Berdych will be the first time the duo has met. Berdych hasn’t reached a final since the Bastad (Sweden) event that was played on clay right after Wimbledon ended in July.

In a battle between young French tennis stars, World No. 20 Tsonga will battle 30th ranked Monfils for a berth in the finals. The last time they met was in a 2003 ITF Futures event in France, with Tsonga winning easily in straight sets.

This afternoon, Tsonga smashed 13 aces against Austrian Jurgen Melzer en route to a trouble-free, 6-3, 6-2, victory in just over an hour. The win earned Tsonga his 21st victory of an injury filed season in which he had to sit out roughly three months with knee problems. Despite sitting out three months in 2008, Tsonga has smashed a remarkable 297 aces in 30 matches. Monfils grinded out a, 7-6(6), 6-4, win over German Philipp Petzschner to advance to his third semifinal of the year. A semifinalist at the French Open in May, Monfils improved to 22-13 on the year.