Lleyton Hewitt (#4) vs. Francisco Clavet (Semifinals)
Hewitt leads series 1-0. (2000 Sydney - Hard - 2nd Round - 6-3, 6-2)

The fans and players were greeted with very cool (low 50s) temperatures, overcast skies, and windy conditions for today's first semifinal match. Coats and blankets were not uncommon sites for what has been an unpredictable early March here in Scottsdale. In a somewhat baffling scheduling move, the last two quarterfinal match winners yesterday were scheduled for the day semifinal today. Spain's Francisco Clavet took out Chilean Nicolas Massu in a late afternoon match yesterday while Australian Lleyton Hewitt knocked the more infamous Chilean, Marcelo Rios, out of the tournament in last evening's feature match. It was the old versus the young as one of the oldest players on the tour, 32-year old Clavet, faced one of the "New Balls" contingent the recently ex-teenager Hewitt (now 20). With a win today, Hewitt would reach his third consecutive Franklin Templeton final, a feat never accomplished here in Scottsdale. Hewitt, a qualifier at the time, advanced to the final losing to Jan Michael Gambill in 1999 and won the title last year defeating Tim Henman.

Hewitt won the toss and elected to receive. The Australian earned his first break point of the match at 30- 40 but Clavet prevailed with the hold. Hewitt held his opening serve game at love. The players held serve through much of the middle of the first set. Each though were having some serious problems on their forehand wing. This was confirmed through post match statistics, as Hewitt committed 10 forehand error in the first set to 5 winners, Clavet no better at 9 forehand errors to 1 winner. In a particularly long game on Clavet's serve, Hewitt had another break point opportunity but once again failed to convert. The first break of the match occurred with Hewitt serving at 4-3. Clavet hit a very deep backhand in the corner that Hewitt could not get back to set up the break and in a particularly long rally a wide forehand from the Australian gave Clavet the opportunity to serve out the first set. The Spaniard struggled on serve in this game, once again giving Hewitt a break point. After yet another missed forehand late in the game, Hewitt screamed out in frustration and was given a code violation warning for unsportsmanlike conduct, though to the best of my knowledge he had not yelled out anything profane. Rattled by his shaky play, Hewitt netted a forehand to give Clavet the first set at 6-3 in 43 minutes.

Despite the non-improving weather conditions, the crowd stood by its defending champion as the second set begun. On his first break point of the match thus far, Hewitt broke Clavet (with the first "C'mon" yell of the match for the Aussie) in the second game of the set and held easily in his next service game to go up 3- 0. But in the fifth game, Hewitt's game crumbled. He dropped serve at love to give the break back. Clavet at one point in the middle of the set, including the love break of Hewitt, rattled off 11 straight points. Clavet would take the lead in the second set in the seventh game when Hewitt double faulted (his only one of the match) at break point. Despite being down a break and a set, the feisty Australian never seemed out of the match. Hewitt heavily challenged the Spaniard in his next two service games. Hewitt reached seven break points over two Clavet service games, even going up 0-40 as the Spaniard served for the match. But the tenacious Spaniard battled each away and won the match on his first match point. Clavet took the second set 6-4 in 51 minutes and scored his second upset win of the tournament after taking out the #2 seed, Andre Agassi, in the first round.

The statistic of the match was definitely break point opportunities. Hewitt was only able to break Clavet once out of 11 tries, while the Spaniard impressively converted 3 of 3 chances. Amazingly, Clavet has faced 45 break points thus far this week and has only relinquished 9 of them. Hewitt's serving was also suspect today. While winning 82% of his first serve points, he was only able to get in a slim 48% of them (in contrast to Clavet's 60% first serve percentage). The match was a little messy under the windy conditions as Hewitt hit 39 unforced errors against 24 winners; Clavet 24 unforced errors to 11 winners.

After the match, Hewitt gave credit to Clavet for his steady play. Though not necessarily using it as a scapegoat for the loss, Hewitt did state that it was tough to come back today after last night's match versus Rios. The Australian said he "felt like he played the final last night." Hewitt also mentioned that a mysterious breathing problem (though not asthma) which has ailed him over the past six months has prevented him from any doing any serious on or off-court training in recent months.

For Francisco Clavet, he reaches his second hardcourt final of the year as well as his career. Early this year, the Spaniard reached the finals of Auckland defeating Jan Michael Gambill and Greg Rusedski before losing to Dominik Hrbaty in three sets in the final. Clavet will take on the winner of tonight's match between #3 seed Magnus Norman versus Harel Levy on Sunday for the championship.