ESPN Tennis

HOUSTON -- James Blake outlasted Argentina's Juan Monaco 7-5 (5), 1-6, 7-6 (0) on Friday night to advance to the semifinals of the U.S. Men's Clay Court Championships for the first time.

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The second-seeded American eked out the first set and played a loose second set, getting broken in his first two service games before turning the momentum around in the third set.

He lost his serve at love in the second game of the deciding set to go down 2-0 but broke back in the next game.

Blake called his being broken early in the third "a pretty bad game."

"I tried not to get too down on myself," he said. "Maybe once I got down 2-0, I just said there's no reason to be tentative anymore. If I'm going to go down, I'm going to go down playing my game."

He broke the eighth-seeded Monaco in the third set by hitting a running forehand winner down the line after chasing down a drop shot by the Argentine.

Blake, ranked No. 9 in the world, has never made it past the quarterfinals in Houston, which is hosting the event for the last time this year. He lost in the second round in 2001, in the quarterfinals the next four years and in the first round in 2006.

On Saturday, Blake will play unseeded qualifier Mariano Zabaleta, the Argentine who beat fifth-seeded Jurgen Melzer, last year's runner-up, 6-1, 6-2, earlier Friday.

Ivo Karlovic beat third-seeded Tommy Haas 7-6 (7), 6-4 in another quarterfinal Friday.

"It's 3-0 on the clay now, so I'm pretty happy," Karlovic told the crowd after the match, which at times was played in a heavy drizzle.

Coming into the match, Karlovic, ranked No. 108 in the world, had beaten the German twice on clay, in Rome in 2004 and last year in Munich. Haas is No. 10 in the world.

The 6-foot-10 Karlovic fought off a set point in the tiebreak when it appeared Haas had passed him at the net with a cross-court backhand. The ball clipped the top of the net, and it jumped up and went wide on Croat's side.

"I just saw it out and I was happy," said Karlovic, whose fastest serve of the day was 143 mph.

Three points later, he pounded an overhead for a winner at the net to take the set.

Haas' backhand passing shot again clipped the top of net and went out on match point to give Karlovic his third straight win over a top 10 player. He beat Blake earlier this year in San Jose, Calif., and Nikolay Davydenko of Russia last year.

Karlovic will play Albert Montanes of Spain, a 6-4, 6-4 winner over Vincent Spadea.

Haas said he thought the passing shot when he was up 7-6 in the tiebreak against Karlovic had given him the set.

"The way I struck the ball, it felt good, and I thought that was going to be the set, and there you go, it wasn't," Haas said. "That was also maybe why after the first set mentally I wasn't there anymore as I would have liked to be."

Five seeds have fallen in the draw so far this week. Haas lost to Karlovic, who in the first round beat fifth-seeded Benjamin Becker of Germany; Zabaleta beat fourth-seeded American Mardy Fish in the second round and Melzer on Friday; and Spadea beat seventh-seeded Robby Ginepri of the U.S. in the opening round.

Montanes won against Spadea on his first match point, set up by a blistering backhand down the line. It was the first match between the players.

Montanes drew Andy Roddick in the first round, but the top-seeded American withdrew Monday because of a hamstring injury.

Haas' loss means that Andy Murray of Scotland will move into the top 10. The 35 points Haas received from his semifinal finish here last year will drop off computer tabulations and push Murray up from No. 11.

Haas defaulted to Fish in the semifinal in 2006 because of a wrist injury.

The last time a player from Britain was in the top 10 was before July 4, 2005, when Tim Henman of England was in the top 10.

Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press