GINEPRI OUSTS BLAKE

Robby Ginepri is quickly putting the disappointment of 2007 behind him.

Ginepri advanced to his second semifinal in as many tournaments this year, beating James Blake 6-2, 6-2 in the quarterfinals of the SAP Open on Friday night.

Ginepri lost to Blake in straight sets last week in Florida and will take on fourth-seeded Radek Stepanek here in San Jose. Stepanek beat Lu Yen-hsun 6-2, 7-6 (5) in Friday’s first match.

The other semifinal will feature top-seeded Andy Roddick against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. Roddick survived a tough match against good friend Mardy Fish, getting the only break of the third set to win 7-6 (6), 1-6, 7-5.

Ginepri controlled his match from the start. He had slipped from a career-high ranking of 15th in 2005 to 135th coming into this week. After losing to Blake in the third round of the Australian Open last year, Ginepri didn’t win consecutive matches again until June.

But he has started his year with two straight trips to semifinals, ending an eight-match losing streak to top 10 players with the win over Blake.

This match was completely different than the one Blake and Ginepri played last Saturday at Delray Beach. Ginepri frustrated Blake with punishing groundstrokes and rolled to the easy victory. Blake was broken in his first three service games and only held serve twice in eight tries. As the match went on, Blake continually overhit balls, sending them into the net or well past the baseline.