Third seed Gilles Muller struck eight aces and lost five of his first service points to defeat wild card Pedro Sousa 6-3, 6-2 in 67 minutes on Thursday at the Millennium Estoril Open. The win puts the 33-year-old Luxembourg native into his third ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season.
“You want to win no matter what court it is, so it’s been frustrating to not win many matches on clay the past few years,” said Muller. “But I did things differently this year and went to Monaco 10 days before my tournaments. I had a couple of good matches in Monte-Carlo and now here, so it’s been working well.
He will next face Taro Daniel, who dismissed qualifier Bjorn Fratangelo 6-4, 6-4. The 24-year-old Japanese player is through to an ATP World Tour quarter-final for only the second time, with his maiden effort coming in Vina del Mar in February 2014.
[ALSO LIKE]
Fourth seed David Ferrer, who has 697 match wins, made his Estoril debut this week a successful one against fellow wild card Frederico Ferreira Silva, advancing to the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-4 win. The Spaniard dropped just five points in racing to a 4-0 lead in the opening set and maintained control throughout the match. The victory puts him into his first ATP World Tour quarter-final of the season.
Next up for Ferrer is Ryan Harrison, who received a walkover when Juan Martin del Potro withdrew yesterday due to a family emergency. The fourth seed leads his FedEx ATP Head2Head against Harrison 3-0, but the American has taken at least a set in all of their meetings.
The President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, watched the action on day four.
Spaniards Scrape Into Doubles SFs
Spaniards Nicolas Almagro and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez scraped into the semi-finals by beating fourth seeds Leander Paes and Andre Sa 7-6(2), 4-6, 10-8 in one hour and 39 minutes. Paes and Melo recovered from a 2-4 deficit in the second set. Almagro and Garcia-Lopez will now have an all-Spanish battle against David Marrero and Tommy Robredo.
Harrison completed his great day with Michael Venus by reaching the final four 6-4, 6-3 over Carlos Berlocq and Sergio Galdos. They'll play Ariel Behar and Aliaksandr Bury, who defeated Indian duo Purav Raja and Divij Sharan 7-5, 6-3.