The 27-year-old kicked eight penalty goals and two conversions to add to his team’s tries by the prop Damien Penesini and winger Andrew Wagstaff.
The hosts Caerphilly had little answer to the power of the visiting pack and the elusiveness of centres Johnathan Hawker and Rhys Shorney. The Caerphilly stand-off Luke Richards kicked the first six points of the game, but that was it for his team. Ebbw Vale are in the semi-finals again after reaching that stage in 1997, ‘98 and 2000. In the 1998 final, they lost 17-12 to Llanelli.Underdogs Dunvant took an early lead at home to Welsh/ Scottish League giants Newport but the power of the visitors told after half an hour, and the Black and Ambers eventually romped to a 62-14 win. New Zealand-born stand-off Shane Howarth scored 25 points to continue his record-breaking exploits with the boot.Another Antipodean, Aust-ralian winger Matt Mostyn, scored three tries, and his form is a big boost to Newport. They have beaten Ebbw Vale twice in the league this season, and will go into the semi-final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff as favourites.Sale revived their hopes of reaching the play-offs in the Zurich Premiership with three tries in four minutes as they defeated bottom-placed Rotherham 39-13 at Clifton Lane to bring them within two points of London Irish in eighth place.Jim Mallinder’s first outing as head coach provided Sale’s first win since December in the competition, and was marked by a blistering display from the full-back Jason Robinson.Wayward kicking by Mike Umaga allowed Sale a slight 6-3 advantage at half-time, and within a minute of the restart winger Anthony Elliott registered his first try for Sale in his second appearance.Jos Baxendell scored again two minutes later, then Robinson took advantage of Charlie Hodgson’s break with a weaving run to the corner.

Scott Lines’ close-range score made it 32-3, and Elliott raced over for his second try to secure the bonus point. The hosts took little consolation from tries by Ben Wade and Philip Greaves.. The nickname – “Hot Roddick” – suggests itself, and the Americans have every reason to believe that it will burn throughout the world of tennis after watching Andy Roddick demolish Pete Sampras, 7-6, 6-3, in the third round of the Ericsson Open here yesterday. The nickname – “Hot Roddick” – suggests itself, and the Americans have every reason to believe that it will burn throughout the world of tennis after watching Andy Roddick demolish Pete Sampras, 7-6, 6-3, in the third round of the Ericsson Open here yesterday.
Roddick, 18 years and seven months, became the youngest player to defeat Sampras since Fabrice Santoro, of France, who was 18 and six months when performing the feat in Rome in 1991. But whereas Santoro overcame Sampras with guile, Roddick bombarded him with powerful serves – his first serve averaged 124mph – and confident returns, honed with the help of Andre Agassi as a practice partner.Born in Omaha, Nebraska, but raised as a tennis player in Boca Raton, along the Florida coast from Miami, the 6ft 1 in Roddick lived up to Sampras’s pre-match prediction that he would “swing away with nothing to lose”, as he did when dispatching Marcelo Rios, the Chilean former world No 1, in straight sets in the second round.On that occasion, Roddick hit one serve at 141 mph. His fastest yesterday was 139 mph – but the power and placement of both the first and second serves never ceased to trouble Sampras. And Roddick conceded only two points on his own serve in the second set.

“That’s the best I’ve ever returned,” he said.Glowing, but not overplaying his success – “I’m not a hero, I play tennis, and I played a good match” – Roddick savoured the significance of this breakthrough on his favourite court. “Pete’s the first top 10 player I’ve beaten, and he’s probably the greatest player of all time.” Ironically, the man with a record 13 Grand Slam singles titles – seven of them from Wimbledon – was inducted into the Ericsson Open’s Hall of Fame immediately after yesterday’s match.”So impressive,” said the US Davis Cup captain, Pat McEnroe. “That’s phenomenal to play that type of tennis against Pete Sampras.”"First and foremost I wanted to serve well,” Roddick said. “I made lot of serves when I needed to.”Frankly, Sampras was made to look a 29-year-old with his best days behind him by the strong, success-hungry Roddick, and he gave his opponent full credit. “The way he played today, he’s definitely the future of American tennis,” Sampras said “He was kind of in the zone there for a while. He played with no fear.” Although Sampras, the defending champion, recovered a break in the first set, he was savaged after double-faulting on the opening point of the tie-break, which Roddick went on to win, 7-2, after mis-hitting a lob for 4-0.Broken for 0-2 in the second set, Sampras struggled to keep pace with his rampant opponent for the remainder of the match as the 14,000 spectators declared Roddick Day on Stadium Court.It certainly was not a day for the Russians who have been as unreliable here as the Brits. Yevgeny Kafelnikov followed Marat Safin out of the tournament yesterday as surely as Greg Rusedski trailed after Tim Henman.Safin, the second seed, at least had the excuse of a back injury when losing to Spain’s Juan Balcells in his opening match, which questioned the wisdom of his playing in the first place.