TORONTO (CP) _ A couple of young guns are using the $2.45-million US Rogers Cup to show they're in the same league as some of the ATP Tour's best players.

Richard Gasquet of France, 20, and Andy Murray of Britain, 19, advanced to the semifinals of the Masters Series event on Friday. Gasquet took out No. 13 seed Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-1 while Murray dispatched No. 14 Jarkko Nieminen of Finland, 6-4, 6-7 (0), 6-3.

But there's no question who the heavy favourite is here.

World No. 1 Roger Federer of Switzerland advanced with a 7-6 (4), 6-7 (5), 6-3 win over Xavier Malisse of Belgium. The top seed will play No. 15 Fernando Gonzalez on Saturday after the Chilean advanced with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Jose Acasuso of Argentina.

Federer was given a stiff test by Malisse. The Belgian matched the Swiss star in the power department and surprised Federer by breaking him when he was serving for the match at 5-4 in the second set. After some fantastic rallies, Malisse went on to win the tiebreaker and the crowd at the Rexall Centre gave both players a standing ovation.

But in the deciding set, Federer broke Malisse in the fourth game before putting the match away. The 2004 Toronto champ may have hiccuped in the second set but said afterwards that he wasn't worried. In fact, the soft-spoken 25-year-old oozed confidence.

``For me, there was no reason to panic,'' Federer said. ``We were back to zero and he's got to win another 40 points or so to win the set. That's a long way, especially against me and I'm very well aware of that.''

Malisse was disappointed but still pleased with his effort.

``Today was close but it's still Roger out there,'' he said.

The other semifinal will feature two of the game's rising stars.

Gasquet, who at No. 51 is 20 spots below Murray in the world rankings, stunned Federer last year in Monte Carlo before losing to Spain's Rafael Nadal in the semis. He has three career ATP tournament victories and made it to the final of last year's Masters Series tournament in Hamburg before losing to Federer.

Murray, who's only pro tournament victory came last February in San Jose, Calif., expects his first career meeting against Gasquet _ and first Masters Series semifinal _ to be a tough one.

``He's beaten Federer,'' Murray said. ``That shows that he's obviously a great player in the making.''

Murray made it to the final of last week's event in Washington and has knocked off some big names here this week, including Nieminen, No. 12 seed David Ferrer of Spain, fellow Briton Tim Henman and Spain's Carlos Moya.

In doubles play, the fourth-seeded team of Toronto's Daniel Nestor and Mark Knowles of the Bahamas defeated Simon Aspelin of Sweden and Todd Perry of Australia 2-6, 6-3, 10-2. The Canadian said his opponents started off strong and kept it up.

``I think they hit the shots rather than us making the mistakes,'' Nestor said. ``We had to turn it around by playing well _ they didn't give us anything.''

Nestor and Knowles will play the top-seeded team of Bob and Mike Bryan in Saturday's semifinal. The American brothers were also pushed to a tiebreaker in a 3-6, 6-4, 10-7 win over the fifth-seeded team of Fabrice Santoro of France and Nenad Zimonjic of Serbia.

Federer has won 52 straight matches in North America since losing to Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty in the first round at Cincinnati over two years ago.

He was broken an uncharacteristic three times by the hard-hitting Malisse, but in the end, his usual mix of punishing groundstrokes and deft touch proved to be too much.

Federer said the chilly, breezy conditions gave him some trouble.

``It was really hard to do what you wanted to do because every time you came (to the net) on the average shot it was very hard to win the point,'' Federer said.

``I just felt like it was tough out there tonight.''

Berdych, saddled with a quick turnaround after his upset win over Nadal a day earlier, did not have much spring in his step in the day's opening match in the bright sunshine. Gasquet won 22 of 24 points (92 per cent) on first serve to only 55 per cent for Berdych, who also knocked out Nestor from the singles draw in the first round.

Berdych said he wasn't tired but added there was a bit of an emotional hangover after his upset win. He was particularly flat in the second set and didn't manage a break point in the entire match.

Gasquet has been impressive all week _ knocking out No. 5 James Blake of the U.S., Santoro and Spain's Fernando Verdasco. He said he was just trying to keep things simple against Berdych.

``I served good, I returned good,'' he said. ``It was the key (to) the match.''

Murray hit just 37 per cent (41 for 112) of his first serves but made up for it with some dazzling net play and by converting eight of 18 (44 per cent) break point opportunities.

He blew a great chance to close things out, serving for the match up 5-3. But at 15-30, he hit an overhead smash right back to Nieminen in the far corner of the court and the Finn hit a winner on the return. Murray double-faulted on double-break point, the match went back on serve, and Nieminen went on to take the tiebreaker to force a third set.

``I thought I did pretty well to keep it together,'' Murray said. ``I didn't really get frustrated _ bar one or two points _ which could have been really easy to do after having served for (the match) and then losing a seven-love tiebreaker.

``But I broke in the first game of the third and started to play aggressive again.''

Also Friday, Martin Damm of the Czech Republic and Leander Paes of India defeated the second-seeded team of Jonas Bjorkman of Sweden and Max Mirnyi of Belarus, 7-6 (4), 7-5. Damm and Paes will play Australia's Paul Hanley and Kevin Ullyett of Zimbabwe, the No. 3 seeds, on Saturday.
© The Canadian Press, 2007