No. 7 Safin stuns two-time defending champion Davydenko in Moscow

Former World No. 1 Marat Safin (pictured) stunned two-time defending champion and No. 1 seeded Nikolay Davydenko, 7-6(5), 4-6, 6-4, at the ATP Kremlin Cup in Moscow on Friday evening. Mischa Zverev was also a winner as he fought of two match points while serving 1-5 down in the third set of his match.

Safin, who entered Friday’s match on a four-match losing streak to Davydenko, fired a remarkable 17 aces and only three double faults, while Davydenko managed to hit only three aces while hitting six double faults. The 28-year-old improves to 23-21 on the year and owns a 16-10 record at his hometown tournament. Safin is hoping to capture his first ATP title since beating Lleyton Hewitt to win the 2005 Australian Open in Melbourne. Davydenko, a three-time champion in Moscow, drops to 49-7 on the season and 17-3 at this event. Next up for Safin is German rising star Zverev, who held off the strong Serbian youngster Viktor Troicki, 6-4, 3-6, 7-5.

After failing behind 1-5 in the final set and being down two match points on his serve, Zverev held his serve before breaking Troicki at love in the eighth game of the match to get the score to 3-5. He then held serve again and finally broke Troicki after the Serb saved the first five break points of that game. At 4-5 down, Zverev was able to hold serve then immediately break Troicki again and serve out the match to win 7-5 and advance to his first ATP level semifinal of his young career. The 21-year-old German had reached an ATP level quarterfinal three other times this season but had never advanced past that round until today. The German now owns a 15-21 record for the season. A finalist in Washington earlier this year, losing to Juan Martin Del Potro, the Serbian drops to 21-18 on the year.

Frenchman Fabrice Santoro and Russian Igor Kunitsyn also advanced to the semifinals, where they will do battle against each other for a spot in the finals. Santoro advanced when fellow Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu retired in the middle of the match due to illness. Santoro was leading 6-3, 2-0, at the time of the retirement. Santoro will now play in his third ATP semifinal of the season. Kunitsyn hammered Frenchman Jeremy Chardy, 6-4, 6-2, in 63 minutes to advance to his third career semifinal appearance in Moscow. Kunitsyn broke Chardy’s serve four times this afternoon and lost only two points on his second serve throughout the routine match. The series is tied 1-1 between Santoro and Kunitsyn in ATP level matches, but they have also played twice in 2008 in Challenger Series events, with each winning once.