VIENNA (AP)—Defending champion Jurgen Melzer reached the semifinals of the Bank Austria Trophy after Philipp Kohlschreiber pulled out with a strained groin shortly before their quarterfinal Friday.
The top-seeded Melzer, who was 0-3 in career matches against the German, next plays third-seeded Nicolas Almagro. The Spaniard defeated No. 8 Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina 7-5, 3-6, 6-3.
Almagro, who won two clay-court events over the summer, had nine aces and broke Chela four times to advance to his first hard-court semifinal this season.
Andreas Haider-Maurer joined fellow Austrian Melzer in Saturday’s semifinals after upsetting last year’s finalist and second-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia 7-6 (1), 6-4.
Haider-Maurer will play Michael Berrer of Germany, who beat fourth-seeded Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 5-7, 6-1, 6-4.
Melzer was disappointed that he didn’t get to face Kohlschreiber.
“It’s a pity, I’d loved to play,” said the French Open semifinalist, who is ranked a career-high 12th. “I would like to show on court who’s the best.”
Kohlschreiber was injured in a doubles match with fellow German Christopher Kas on Thursday.
“I made a wrong move and unfortunately things got worse overnight,” the seventh-seeded Kohlschreiber said. “Doctors told me not to play so I had no other choice.”
Haider-Maurer continued his surprising run at the tournament by eliminating the 14th-ranked Cilic.
The 157th-ranked Austrian, who had before never reached the quarterfinals of an ATP event, lost in qualifying but entered the main draw after fifth-seeded Ernests Gulbis pulled out for personal reasons and then defeated both Thomas Muster and Andreas Seppi.
“A dream comes true,” Haider-Maurer said. “I didn’t believe before the match that I could win it.”
Cilic, who won two ATP events this season, had an early break and was up 4-2 in the opening set, but produced a series of forehand errors as he started to lose control of the game.
Haider-Maurer leveled at 4-4, comfortably won the tiebreaker and managed a decisive break in the opening game of the second set.
Berrer dropped serve at 5-5 in the opening set on the only break point he faced in the entire match against Baghdatis.
The German dominated the second set before Baghdatis got treatment for a right shoulder injury at the start of the decider.
Berrer added another break and closed out the win on his first match point.