THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
TOKYO -- Spain's David Ferrer and American Andy Roddick lived up to their No. 1 and No. 2 seedings Thursday by progressing to the quarter-finals of the Japan Open while Canadian Aleksandra Wozniak won her second-round match in straight sets.
Ferrer recovered from a slow start to defeat Japanese wild-card Takao Suzuki 4-6, 6-3, 6-2, while Roddick downed No. 14 seed Jurgen Melzer of Austria 7-6 (2), 6-2.
Wozniak, the No. 8 seed from Blainville, Que., defeated Ryoko Fuda of Japan 6-1, 6-1 in women's play.
Ferrer will next meet fifth-seeded Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina, who defeated Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-1, 6-3.
The draw opened up for Roddick, as his likely quarter-final opponent Jo-Wilfried Tsonga retired from his third-round match with a reported abdominal strain. The Frenchman, who reached the Australian Open final this year and won the ATP tournament in Bangkok last weekend, was leading 7-5, 1-2 when he was forced out. Viktor Troicki of Serbia will meet Roddick.
Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic defeated Tommy Robredo of Spain 7-6 (6), 6-2 and will face No. 3 Fernando Gonzalez of Chile in the quarter-finals. Gonzalez defeated American Amer Delic 6-4, 7-6 (4).
The other quarter-final will be between Frenchman Richard Gasquet and German veteran Rainer Schuettler. The fourth-seeded Gasquet crushed Japanese Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-2, while Schuettler, the No. 12 seed, lost an epic second-set tiebreak before recovering to edge eight-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-7 (12), 6-4.
Ferrer broke Suzuki to go up 3-1 in the second set and said that was the key to winning the third-round match.
"It was a tough match, Takao surprised me," said Ferrer. "He was very focused but when I broke him in the second set I got more focused, then the third set was easier for me."
Ferrer coasted through the final set and won with an ace to wrap up the match in one hour 56 minutes.
Ferrer, currently No. 5 in the world rankings, defeated Gasquet in the final of the Japan Open last year.
He is coming off an opening-round exit in Beijing last week.
Roddick is coming off a victory at the China Open on Sunday. He needed three tiebreakers to defeat Ivo Minar in his opening match here Wednesday.
His third-round match against Melzer was much faster.
"I played OK," said Roddick. "Jurgen had a few calls go against him in the second set which is unfortunate, but I'm glad I didn't have to spend too much time on the court."
Roddick broke Melzer to go up 2-1 in the second set. His return appeared to be long and Melzer was given a code violation for an audible obscenity after protesting.
No comments:
Post a Comment