MILOS RAONIC, the No.11 seed, and Vasek Pospisil, a wildcard entrant, set up a rare all-Canadian semi-final in the ATP Masters 1000 Rogers Cup last night.
The two hopefuls are the first and second Canadians to reach the semi-finals of the tournament since Mike Belkin in 1969. The pair have never met in competition, and the match guarantees a home contender in the final for the first time since Bob Bedard won in 1958.
Raonic, who had overcome the No.6 seed Juan Martin Del Potro in the last 16, eased his way to a 7-6 (7-3), 4-6, 6-4 quarter-final win over Ernests Gulbis, the unseeded Latvian who had ended the winning run of Scotland's Wimbledon champion Andy Murray 24 hours earlier.
He will be firm favourite to reach the final when he takes on Pospisil, who led Russia's Nikolay Davydenko 3-0 yesterday when his opponent was forced to retire with bronchitis. The young home player is ranked 71st in the world, and had been required to battle a great deal harder in the previous round when he prevailed over Tomas Berdych, the Czech, 7-5, 2-6, 7-6 (7-5). Pospisil is now on the verge of the breaking into the world's top 40.
"This is a huge week for me points-wise," he said. "I'm going to make a really big jump regardless of how the match goes tomorrow. I'm just excited and will use the experience I have and keep playing well.
"Top 50 was a lifelong goal and dream of mine. It was a goal that I set at the beginning of the year; my perfect scenario if I ended the year top 50. Here I am there already. Every night I go to bed, I'm thinking, I want to do better."
Canada is a happy hunting ground for the home favourite; he won the ATP Challenger Tour title in Vancouver last week, defeating Daniel Evans in the final, not long after reaching his first World Tour last four at the Clara Open Colombia in Bogota.
Andy Murray's singles challenge may have come to an abrupt end courtesy of Gulbis' fine display on Thursday but the Scot teamed up with his fellow-countryman Colin Fleming to coast into the quarter-finals of the doubles with a 6-3, 6-3 demolition of the No.4 seeds Leander Paes, of India, and the Czech Radek Stepanek. They were scheduled to play the fifth-seeded pairing of Aisam-ul-Haq Qureshi, of Pakistan, and Jean-Julien Rojer, of Dutch Antilles, last night.
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