Carlos Moya has victory within reach before tightening up late in the third set.
By KEITH NIEBUHR
Published April 2, 2004
KEY BISCAYNE - The defining shot in Thursday's Nasdaq-100 Open quarterfinal between Andy Roddick and Carlos Moya wasn't a booming Roddick serve or a Moya misfire.
And there were plenty of both down the stretch.
The play to remember came with Roddick serving at 5-all, down 30-40, in the deciding set, with Roddick scrambling from one side of the baseline to the other to chase a shot, Moya waiting at the net for what he must have thought would be an easy putaway.
"I hadn't really played the point the way I wanted to up to that," Roddick said.
The way he finished it was memorable. With a crosscourt forehand winner, the third-ranked Roddick stayed alive in the game, which he won, then broke No. 6 Moya the next game for a 5-7, 6-2, 7-5 victory, his first against a top-10 opponent this year.
"That was a big shot," Roddick said.
Roddick plays Vincent Spadea, who beat Agustin Calleri 7-5, 6-1, today. No. 4-ranked Guillermo Coria and No. 22 Fernando Gonzalez, both of whom won Wednesday, meet in the other semifinals.
None of the semifinalists has won this event.
Moya, a No. 5 seed and a finalist here last year, appeared to have the match in hand, serving at 5-4 in the third set with a 30-15 lead. "I'm going to win 95 percent of those matches," Moya said.
But this one slipped away, and Moya has only himself to blame. The Spaniard hit one shot into the net, double-faulted and went long with a forehand to give Roddick that pivotal game.
"He was the better player pretty much all day," Roddick, the No. 2 seed, said. "Lucky for me, I just think he got a little tight at the end. He gave me a gift. I would love to sit here and claim all credit for it and say I was just fighting and I was great and everything, but that's not really the case."
Spadea, ranked 36th, had no trouble with 21st-ranked Calleri, who beat Andre Agassi in straight sets the previous round. Spadea has won 11 of his past 12 matches.
