BASTAD, Sweden — Second-seeded Robin Soderling beat Nicolas Almagro 7-5, 6-3 on Friday to reach the semifinals at the Swedish Open.

Defending champion Tommy Robredo, seeded third in the clay-court tournament, and Juan Monaco also advanced.

Soderling, this year's surprise French Open finalist, broke Almagro's serve twice in the opening set. He broke Almagro to lead 5-3 in the second set. Soderling then wrapped up the match in the next game when Almagro's service return sailed long.

It was Soderling's second win over Almagro in less than a month. He also won a third-round match at Wimbledon.

"I played well today," Soderling said. "I hit the ball well. Maybe I didn't move at 100 percent. Almagro is an excellent clay-court player and I beat him in two straight (sets), so that is very good for my confidence."

Soderling will play either Andreas Vinciguerra of Sweden or Jurgen Melzer of Austria.

Robredo, who is playing in Bastad for the ninth straight year, closed in on a third final appearance by defeating Teimuraz Gabashvili of Russia 6-4, 6-0. The third-seeded Spaniard improved to a 23-6 tournament record.

He will play Monaco, who advanced when top-seeded Fernando Verdasco of Spain retired with a right calf injury trailing 6-1, 3-1.

"In the first game of the match, I pulled a muscle in my calf," Verdasco said. "It was really hard to play after that. I had real pain when serving, especially since the injury was in my right leg."

Monaco is bidding to reach his second clay-court final of the season. He lost to Robredo in his native Argentina in February.