Becker loses out to Berasategui

Spain's Alberto Berasategui showed his clay court pedigree yesterday when coming back to knock Boris Becker out in the quarter-finals of the Monte Carlo Open 6-7 (4/7), 7-5, 6-1.

Berasategui, the 14th seed who lost the final at Barcelona last week to American Todd Martin, shrugged off a first-set tiebreak loss. He then turned the tide in his first career match against the 30-year-old Becker, levelling at one set each as Becker doublefaulted to yield three set points to the seed. He needed only one, firing over a winning passing shot.

Becker dropped serve in the fourth and sixth games of the final set before Berasategui moved into his third straight semi-final when Becker netted a backhand.

Berasategui faces a Saturday semi-final against Cedric Pioline,

who won an all-French matchup against Fabrice Santoro.

Pioline completely missed an over-the-head backhand attempt on match point, but ran around it to make the return against fellow Frenchman Fabrice Santoro in their quarter-final.

The tenth-seeded Pioline was then able to advance 1-6, 6-2, 6-4 into the semi-finals as Santoro's final smash landed long.

Richard Krajicek of Holland and Spain's Carlos Moya set up their semi-final with wins earlier in the day on the centre court.

Krajicek's 4-6, 7-6 (7/1) 6-1 comeback denied Czech Petr Korda a fourth chance in 10 weeks to take over as world number one in the ATP Tour computer rankings.

Moya, the 14th-seeded 1997 Australian Open finalist defeated sixth-seeded compatriot Alex Corretja, last year's losing finalist here to Chile's Marcelo Rios, 6-3, 6-2.

Moya has done little since losing to Pete Sampras in the Australian final 15 months ago. But the world number 18 Spaniard believes that his game is back on track.

"I have good feelings," said Moya, who won his first match against Corretja after two losses. "I've beaten two French Open champions (Thomas Muster, Yevgeny Kafelnikov) this week. I could say this is the best tournament I've ever played.