Another day of stifling summer heat, and John Isner played Kevin Anderson. The two have played 3 times in the pro ranks. Anderson beat Isner en route to his only ATP final, a loss to Sam Querrey at the Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas in 2008, but Isner beat him twice since then. The two played three times in college as well, with Isner also having a 2-1 lead. Anderson recently came from Chicago where he trained at nearby University of Illinois where he went to college (although he is originally from South Africa).
Isner won the first set, 6-3. In the second set, Isner had a match point twice, one in the tiebreak, but Anderson saved match point then got a set point and took the second set in a tiebreak, 9 points to 7. At this point, Isner looked very tired. The two took a break and went off court. About 10 minutes later, the two returned. Cloud cover kept the sun out for a bit of time. At 3-4 down, Anderson was serving to hold, but played a few nervous points off his forehand to get down break point. He then double-faulted to go down 3-5. It looked like Anderson might break back when he had Isner down 0-30. However, Isner came back to win the game with distant thunder and lightning threatening to postpone the match.
This evening, Andy Roddick will play Mardy Fish in the other semifinals.
In Hamburg, Melzer had a pretty easy straight set win over Seppi. He will face Andrey Golubev, who had a tighter 2 set win over Florian Mayer. That event is being played on clay.