PARIS, France (Reuters) – Dinara Safina woke up from a first-set snooze to keep alive her dreams of a maiden grand slam title but Andy Murray paid for his mid-match doze and slid out of the French Open tennis yesterday.

World number one Safina soaked up the full force of Belarussian teenager Victoria Azarenka’s armoury to reach the semi-finals for the second year running with a see-saw 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 win. She will face Slovak Dominika Cibulkova next.

British third seed Murray had seen the draw open up wide for him following the shock defeat of four-time champion Rafael Nadal but he will not be able to capitalise on the Spaniard’s downfall after being outwitted 6-3, 3-6, 6-0, 6-4 by swashbuckling Chilean world number 12 Fernando Gonzalez.

Murray’s demise meant Roger Federer was the only top-four player left in Paris since Serbia’s Novak Djokovic has also been ushered out of Roland Garros.

The Scot’s hopes of ending Britain’s 73-year wait for a men’s grand slam champion ended in a flurry of dashing forehands and delectable lobs that flew off Gonzalez’s racquet.

“No one’s hit the ball that big. He was hitting it huge. If that happens, you’ve got to say too good,” said Murray, who before this event had never strung together four wins on clay. Gonzalez will next take on Robin Soderling.

The Swedish giant-killer proved his win over Nadal was no fluke as he ruined 10th seed Nikolay Davydenko’s birthday celebrations with a 6-1, 6-3, 6-1 walloping.

The 23rd seed is enjoying his moment in the spotlight and has acquired some famous fans along the way.

“It was very big for me to receive an SMS from Bjorn (Borg),” said Soderling, whose defeat of Nadal ensured the Spaniard would continue to share the record of winning four Paris titles in a row with Borg.

“He said thank you for not letting Nadal break my record.”

Maria Sharapova, on a comeback trail from a nine-month injury layoff, was on the receiving end of an even more emphatic 6-0, 6-2 rout from 20th seed Cibulkova.

Safina had dropped only five games in her first four matches but by the end of the 23-minute first set she had more than doubled that figure as ninth seed Azarenka gave her a taste of her own medicine with some devastating baseline power-play.

“At the beginning it was going too fast, there was nothing I could do,” said Safina, last year’s runner-up.

Faced with a tough, stubborn, courageous and racquet-bashing mirror image of herself, Safina struggled to handle her 19-year-old rival until finally breaking for a 2-1 lead in the second set.

GOOD TEST
Within minutes Safina extended her lead to 4-1 and Azarenka’s racquet felt the full force of her anger as she hurled it to the ground after double-faulting on break point.

Venting her frustrations appeared to do the trick as Azarenka pegged Safina back to 4-4 but from then on the Russian kept her focus to wrap up the win, much to the delight of her vocal entourage.

Except Safina’s victory, it was a miserable day for Russia.

Following Nadal’s departure, Davydenko had been Roger Federer’s pick to reach the final from the top half of the draw but Soderling has never been one to read the script.

If the Russian had hoped to celebrate his 28th birthday by reaching his third Paris semi-final, he was clearly mistaken.

He was never allowed to get into the match and after being tormented for 101 minutes, the Russian almost looked relieved when Soderling’s fourth ace whizzed by to end his ordeal.

It was a sentiment shared by Sharapova.

The former world number one’s patched-up shoulder held up during four successive three-setters but her run was finally ended by a rather amusing and petulant Cibulkova.

Behaving like a child who had just had a bag of sweets taken away from her, a grimacing Cibulkova stamped her feet and swiped her racquet against the ground as Sharapova hung on to save four match points.

On the fifth, the 102nd-ranked Sharapova netted a forehand that sent Cibulkova into an aerial twirl before she fell flat on her back to celebrate her first major semi-final appearance.