Terrific result for Daniell in St Petersburg

New Zealand doubles player Marcus Daniell and his Brazilian partner Marcelo Demoliner have won through to the semi-finals at the ATP 250 tournament in St Petersburg in Russia.

A day after knocking out the third seeds, they’ve beaten American’s Americans Taylor Fritz and Tommy Paul 6-0, 3-6, 10-7 and will play top seeds Jamie Murray and Bruno Soares for a place in the final.

“It’s really difficult playing those guys.” Daniell said. “They have a strange attitude towards doubles, sometimes essentially they don't want to be there and sometimes they're really pumped up and it's not easy to play. Our first-round opponents are always super intense and it’s a fight from the first point to the last.” Daniell said.

“It was the opposite those guys came out pretty lackadaisical and we played an almost flawless first set and then they started putting a few more first serves in and returns and they broke us to take the second set and then it was a crapshoot in the super tie-break and we came up with some first serves and we needed to and it was a bit of a sigh of relief when we got it done.”

Tomorrow’s semi final will be a challenge for Daniell who has never beaten Murray and Soares before. The Scot and Brazilian are in the race to qualify for the year end finals in Turin.

“The courts are playing really slow here and I would say that’s a mutual factor. I think both teams prefer fast courts. I've always struggled against Jamie I find his serve really difficult to return, it is a swinging, bouncy loopy left hander and I don't think I've beaten them as a team.” Daniell said.

But Demoliner has had success against them, and Daniell says he will draw on that tomorrow.

“He knows how to play them and so we will have a chat before we warm up tomorrow to see what's worked for him and I'm going to take his lead on it.”

Meanwhile Artem Sitak and Croatian partner Antonio Sancic are through to the semi finals of the ATP Challenger tournament in Ismaning after a 6-4 6-4 win over Romania's Vlad Victor Cornea and India's Ramkumar Ramanathan.