Mitch Freeley

Images- Samer Al Rejjal

Guido Pella booked his place in the semi-finals of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open with a straight-sets victory over Mirza Basic. 

Pella, who is ranked 64 in the world took to centre court for the first time in the tournament and looked at ease dispatching with his Bosnian opponent in 1 hour and six minutes. 

The first set was a closely contested affair, but the Argentinian competitor broke Basic in the sixth game and eight games to round off the set 6-2 winner. 

In the second set Pella, who had defeated fourth seed Albert Ramos-Vinolas in the first round again took the initiative breaking his opponent in the eight game of the second set. Pella then held his serve to pick up a 6-3 second set victory and his place in the final four of the competition. 

Two ATP Next Gen stars battled it out in the second quarter-final on Centre court, when Andrey Rublev faced off against Borna Coric. The duo had met previously in inaugural Next Gen finals in Milan in which Rublev got the better of Coric.

In a closely contested first set, Rublev broke Coric in the fourth game and held serve to eventually win 6-3, in 40 minutes. The 20-year old Russian is set for a bright future, after picking up his maiden ATP tour title last year at Umag is currently ranked number 39 in the world. 

In the second set Coric, who had previously knocked out second seed Pablo Carreno Busta in the first round got an early advantage, breaking Rublev in the sixth game. However the 21-year old suffered an immediate set back when the Russian broke back just a game later. 

Rublev completed the comeback to break Coric in the eleventh game and held on to register a 7-5 set win to seal the match, in just under 1 hour and 30 minutes whilst hitting 21 winners in the process. Rublev will now take on Guido Pella in his second ever ATP semi-final. 

Number one seed Dominic Thiem progressed to his first ever Qatar ExxonMobil Open semi-final with a 7-5, 6-4 straight-sets victory over Greek teenager Stefanos Tsitsipas. Thiem, currently number 5 in the world is the only seeded player still in the competition, held out against a spirited Tsitsipas. 

The first set saw the Austrian break his opponent in the 7th game. Tsitsipas, who defeated Richard Gasquet in the round of 16 rallied immediately after and broke back to level the set. However, Thiem was not to be denied and broke again in the tenth game to settle the set 7-5 in his favour. 

Thiem has yet to drop a set in the tournament and powered through in the second set breaking Tsitsipas in the ninth game 15-40.  The World number five hit a total of 33 winners and booked his place in his first ever Qatar Open semi-final. 

Thiem will now play Gael Monfils who progressed with a  6-3, 7-6 straights victory over Peter Gojowczyk of Germany, 

Monfils who is no stranger to playing at the Qatar Open having reached three Doha finals was in fine form in the first set, breaking his opponent early eventually winning 6-3. 

The French star had been taken to three sets in his previous matches in the tournament, and it certainly looked that this match would be going the same way when 2014 semifinalist Gojowczyk broke his opponent in the sixth match of the second set.  

However, the flamboyant Monfils immediately broke back and showed plenty nerve to winning a thrilling second set tiebreaker 8-6 to set up a Friday semifinal against the first seed Thiem.