Artemis and Azzurra through to Louis Vuitton semis. TeamOrigin and ALL4ONE out.

In contrast to yesterday's alarm-sounding winds, this morning a millpond greeted the teams vying for a place in the Louis Vuitton semi-finals. With the early races cancelled, instead of a best-of-three series it became a sudden-death race when the south-westerly finally filled in.

Anyone wanting to see close match racing could do worse than follow Ben Ainslie around. As in previous races, the judges were called on by both teams as Artemis and TeamOrigin diced at the start and traded tacks up the course. However, the judges remained unimpressed and responded to each request with a green "sail on" flag.

Ainslie won the start, the first beat, the first run and half of the second beat. Inexplicably, he then failed to cover Artemis who picked up a slight wind shift way out to the left of the course. When the boats came back together, Artemis on port crossed over a boat length in front of their rivals, and Ainslie could do nothing as the Swedish team sailed away downwind. Even a tear in the foot of the gennaker on Artemis didn't slow them enough, and they now go through to the semi-final, while Ainslie must watch the rest of the regatta and wonder "what if".

In the second sudden-death match Azzurra had ALL4ONE in trouble almost from the five minute gun. Azzurra skipper Francesco Bruni pinned ALL4ONE in the pre-start manoevres and won a windward/leeward penalty on the French/German team. From the gun, the Italians pinned their opponents to the left hand side of the course, only tacking away to give them searoom at the Bean Rock reef.

Following Azzurra round the top mark by 9 seconds, ALL4ONE attacked downwind and called for a penalty against the Italians for not sailing their proper course. The judges weren't impressed and when ALL4ONE messed up their gennaker drop and caught it around the keel, it was all over. Azzurra sailed conservatively to go through to the semi-finals by a comfortable margin.

Emirates Team New Zealand will tonight be asked to nominate their opponent for tomorrow's best-of-five semi-final series.