Six seeds – Pablo Cuevas, Paolo Lorenzi, Gilles Simon, Jan-Lennard Struff, Jiri Vesely and Horacio Zeballos – were all beaten on a dramatic Wednesday at the Generali Open.
Austrian wild card and World No. 157 Sebastian Ofner kept his nerve in a rain-interrupted 6-3, 2-6, 7-6(3) victory over top seed Pablo Cuevas – making his tournament debut – in two hours. The second-round match was suspended due to rain with Ofner serving at 2-5, 15/30 in the second set.
"I'm happy that I stayed focused during the tie-break [and] I played well," said #NextGenATP's Ofner. "For sure, the experience in Wimbledon helped me today. It's a great feeling to be in the quarters and of course it's very special to play in front of my home crowd."
Ofner, now 4-1 on the year, will next challenge Renzo Olivo, who defeated fellow Argentinean and eighth seed Zeballos 7-6(4), 6-2.
Fourth seed Simon lost 6-4, 6-4 to Serbian Dusan Lajovic, who now plays Kitzbühel resident Philipp Kohlschreiber in the last eight. The German recorded his 15th match win at the ATP World Tour 250 tournament, where he won the 2015 title (d. Mathieu), in beating seventh seed Vesely 6-3, 6-3.
Elsewhere, Thomaz Bellucci ousted sixth seed Struff 6-4, 7-6(3) for a quarter-final clash against second seed Fabio Fognini, the recent Plava Laguna Croatia Open Umag titlist, a 6-4, 6-4 victor over qualifier Miljan Zekic.
Joao Sousa ousted third seed Lorezni 6-7(5), 6-4, 6-1 to reach the quarter-finals, where he will face Gerald Melzer. The Austrian pleased his home crowd with a 6-3, 7-6(1) win over Santiago Giraldo.
