Tennis Ivanisevic bets on his serve

Tennis

Ivanisevic bets on his serve

Goran Ivanisevic fired 22 aces in a 6-4 6-4 win over the unseeded Frenchman Guillaume Raoux in the semi-finals of the $750,000 world indoor tournament in Rotterdam yesterday. Victory against Raoux, who had beaten the fourth seed, Marc Rosset, in Friday's quarter-finals, took Ivanisevic to his fifth consecutive final. He has won three of his last four tournaments. The Croatian second seed ended the 55-minute semi-final with four consecutive aces, winning an extra $10 from his opponent in the process. "After the third ace Raoux said I would not hit a fourth, so I bet him $10 I would hit another one," Ivanisevic said. Ivanisevic, ranked sixth in the world, said he had fun playing the match, in which he broke Raoux in the fifth game of the first set and in the seventh of the final set. But the match was no fun for his opponent. "I can't remember playing. It all went too fast," Raoux said. "And when Goran plays like this there is no chance of winning." Meanwhile in the quarter-finals of the Franklin Templeton Classic in Scottsdale, Arizona, the top seed Wayne Ferreira survived a scare against the American amateur Justin Gimelstob, but Stefan Edberg fell by the wayside. South African Ferreira roared back from 2-5 down to hold off the 436th-ranked Gimelstob 2-6 6-4 7-5 and set up a semi-final clash with Spaniard Alberto Berastegui. The Australian qualifier Sandon Stolle refused to let emotions cloud his game and beat Edberg 7-5 6-3.