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Ginepri and Ferrer upset seeds to make quarters

Posted on: Thursday, 20 October 2005, 12:31 CDT

By Simon Baskett

MADRID (Reuters) - American Robby Ginepri upset third seed Nikolay Davydenko with a high-quality 6-3 7-5 victory to claim a place in the quarter-finals of the Madrid Masters on Thursday.

Ginepri will now be matched against Spain's David Ferrer who fought his way back from a set down to clinch a 6-7 6-1 6-4 win over sixth seed and French Open runner-up Mariano Puerta.

Ginepri and Ferrer will be joined in the last eight by fifth seed David Nalbandian, who notched a 6-3 7-5 win over Sweden's Thomas Johansson.

Nalbandian, who lost to Marat Safin in last year's final, faces a daunting showdown with Croatian Karlovic who used his monster serve to blast his way to a 7-6 7-6 victory over Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia.

Karlovic, who disposed of number two seed Andy Roddick in the last round, has gone to a tiebreak in seven of the eight sets he has played in Madrid this week and appropriately enough finished off against Hrbaty with a thundering ace.

Radek Stepanek, who beat British number one Tim Henman in the second round, downed Argentine Jose Acasuso 7-6 4-6 7-6 to make a quarter-final for the fourth time in a row inside the last month.

The pugnacious Czech, seeded 10 in Madrid, will take on the winner of the all-Spanish duel between top seed and world number two Rafael Nadal and Tommy Robredo.

Fourth-seeded Argentine Guillermo Coria will pit himself against Chile number one Fernando Gonzalez, while the in-form Ivan Ljubcic of Croatia plays Belgium's Olivier Rochus for the remaining places in the last eight.

BEST POINT

The powerful Ginepri, a U.S. Open semi-finalist and seeded 16 in Madrid, had to push himself to the limit to beat world number eight Davydenko, but he gained the crucial advantage when he won the best point of the match with a running forehand pass to go 6-5 up in the second set.

The never-say-die Russian saved four match points in the 12th game, but finally succumbed when Ginepri won his serve with an ace.

Earlier Nalbandian made a confident start against Johansson by breaking serve in the fourth game to go 3-1 up.

Johansson, who won the only previous meeting between the players at the Wimbledon quarter-finals this year, fought back and put the Nalbandian serve under pressure.

But the Argentine held firm to take the first set.

In the second, Nalbandian produced a series of devastating returns to break the Johansson serve in the 11th game and take a 6-5 lead before serving for the match.

Source: REUTERS

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