NEW YORK -- Sjeng Schalken's road to the U.S. Open semifinals may have begun two months ago at Wimbledon.

	Sjeng Schalken reached his first semifinal in 30 Grand Slam events Thursday.

In the quarterfinals there against Lleyton Hewittt, Schalken came back from a two-set deficit and nearly won as he dropped the fifth set 7-5.

Beating the man who went on to the Wimbledon championship sharpened his game and boosted his confidence.

On Thursday, Schalken outlasted Fernando Gonzalez 6-7 (5), 6-3, 6-3, 6-7 (5), 7-6 (2) to advance to Saturday's semifinal against 17th-seeded Pete Sampras, the four-time Open champion who beat 11th-seeded Andy Roddick 6-3, 6-2, 6-4 Thursday night.

"You can see what confidence can do if you get further in the tournament and you get your chances and you take them,'' the 24th-seeded Schalken said. "All of a sudden, I'm in the semis.''

Despite being 6-foot-3, the Dutchman doesn't hit particularly hard. His fastest serve Thursday was 110 mph.

But he's very accurate. He had just two double faults and lost only one of his service games against the 28th-seeded Gonzalez.

"I don't have the big serve, so I have to be really consistent,'' Schalken said. "I have a good return, very consistent, and I have long arms, so they have to serve really well, too.''

Gonzalez had trouble figuring out the speed and spin of Schalken's serve.

"He doesn't have a strong serve, but he puts a lot of first serves in,'' Gonzalez said.

At times during the 3-hour, 43-minute match, Schalken was nervous and had trouble with the wind. That contributed to his squandering leads of 5-1 and 5-3 in the first two tiebreakers.

He also had to deal with a player he'd never faced.

"I didn't expect that he was so explosive, that he had such a big weapon on the forehand side,'' Schalken said.

But Schalken didn't waste a 6-0 lead in the final tiebreaker.

In the previous round, he won two tiebreakers in beating Gustavo Kuerten, unseeded now but the top seeded player at last year's open.

"I never thought I would have the game to beat those power players'' like Kuerten, Schalken said. "It feels very good.''

Better, probably, than the way he felt after his Wimbledon quarterfinal when he fell short.

"Hewitt had a tough time with me,'' Schalken said. "He deserved to win that match because he stepped up on the really big points.''

But now he's in his first semifinal in his 30 Grand Slam tournaments and could have a rematch in the finals against the top-seeded Hewitt, who plays No. 6 Andre Agassi in the other semifinal Saturday.

"It's still not settled down in my mind,'' Schalken said, still getting used to recent success.