Sounding warning bells for South Africa ahead of the upcoming Davis Cup tie, Somdev Devvarman beat Izak Van der Merwe in straight sets to storm into the semi-finals of the US $75,000 ATP Challenger event in Aptos.
The Indian beat the South African Davis Cupper 6-4, 6-2 in the quarter-final of the hard court event on Friday.
This is Somdev's second best performance of the year after making the final of the Chennai Open. Somdev was struggling on the circuit since that memorable feat.
He will next take on Australia's seventh seed Chris Guccione, who ousted third seed American Wayne Odesink 7-6(5), 2-6, 7-6 (2) in his last-eight encounter.
In the doubles event, Harsh Mankad and his American partner David Martin have also reached the semi-finals after beating Alex Bogomolov Jr and Samuel Groth in the second round.
The second seeded Indo-American pair scored an easy 6-3, 6-2 win over the American-Australian combo.
They will next take on third seed Australians Guccione and Carsten Bell who beat Merwe and Nick Lindahl of Australia 6-3, 6-4 in their second round match.