Defending champion Flavio Saretta ignored the wind and the rain to sweep into the semi-finals of the XL Capital Bermuda Open yesterday.

The young Brazilian defeated Germany's Bjorn Phau in two sets, 6-2, 6-4, at Coral Beach to set up a semi-final clash with Israeli qualifier Harel Levy.

The match began in terrible conditions for tennis but, fittingly, as the highly likeable South American sealed the victory the sun finally broke through the clouds.

"Now I hope I can win the tournament," he declared before heading off for a good night's rest.

The opening set, which saw a delay of several minutes for rain, almost passed Phau by and he got off to the worst possible start in the second, handing the break to his opponent with a double fault in the opener.

The next three games went with serve but Saretta extended the gap between himself and Phau in the fifth, pumping his fist as he set up break point.

However, those celebrations seemed a little premature when Phau broke back immediately, the German not wanting to go down without a fight.

Phau held serve in the seventh and Saretta in the eighth, but the ninth was a cliffhanger.

Saretta held match point at 15-40 but Phau forced him to return into the net, then sent a vicious smash past the Brazilian for deuce.

But when a Phau return bounced on the net chord and dropped on his own side, handing Saretta advantage and another match point, it seemed there was no way back.

Phau, however, gave everything he had in the next, sending Saretta scurrying this way and that along the baseline until getting a forehand crosscourt past him.

Saretta screamed out in frustration and he was Saretta screamed out in frustration and was clearly still affected when he hit the next return into the net.

Phau, holding advantage, then thought he had hit an ace and went and sat down in readiness for the next game. Saretta, though, reckoned the serve was out and beckoned the umpire over with a wag of his finger, who, after a moment's deliberation sided with the South American.

The pressure was back on Phau, but he refused to buckle and forced Saretta to fire a return out and send the set into a tenth game.

Tied at 30-all, Phau was forced into an error and handed Saretta match point. Possibly sensing the end was nigh, he threw his racquet at the clay and then kicked a sizeable divot out of the surface in frustration.

He was clearly still thinking about the last shot when Saretta sent down what turned out to be his final serve, Phau firing the return high and wide.

"It is not normal to play in the wind and the rain," said Saretta afterwards. "But I was very focused and very confident. I started playing better than him and I won the first set easier than the second.

"In the second he started to play a little bit better and all of the points were very tough, playing four or five balls (returns), so I am very happy to have won it."

Earlier in the day, there was a shock when Croatian Zeljko Krajan, conqueror of number seven seed Todd Martin, pulled out of his quarter-final match with Juan Antonio Marin of Costa Rica with the latter leading 2-0 in the first set.

At first it was not clear what the problem was, as he did not appear injured, but Krajan cleared matters up afterwards.

"I had stomach problems after the match with Martin. I got food poisoning in a restaurant in the city," he said. "There were many players who also had the same problem, eating the same food in the same place.

"I didn't sleep for two days and could not eat and so it made no sense to play."

Asked which establishment he had eaten at, Krajan diplomatically refused to name the restaurant.