Mello, who won his first career title in Florida this month, rallied to beat Serbia-Montenegro's Janko Tipsarevic, 1-6, 7-6 (3), 6-4.
Friday's other quarterfinals feature Davide Sanguinetti of Italy against Lars Burgsmuller of Germany, while Kenneth Carlsen of Denmark plays Gilles Muller of Luxembourg for the first time, both matches in the top half of the draw.
Sanguinetti downed sixth-seeded Finn Jarkko Nieminen 6-4, 7-5, in a match which combined 30 aces, and Burgsmuller defeated Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-3, 6-2.
Gaz de France
Top-seeded Elena Dementieva of Russia brushed aside Michaela Pastikova of the Czech Republic 6-4, 6-2 in the second round of the Gaz de France Stars.
Dementieva, world-ranked No. 6, had some trouble in the first set against a player ranked 145 places below her, but once she found her groove there was no stopping the Russian's cruise into the quarterfinals.
It was her first match since losing the US Open final nearly three weeks ago. She will play another Czech, Denisa Chladkova, in Friday's quarters.
The only seed to fall was No. 4 Karolina Sprem of Croatia, who fed Maria Elena Camerin of Italy too many unforced errors and lost 6-4, 6-4.
No. 5 Francesca Schiavone of Italy and No. 7 Magdalena Maleeva of Bulgaria lost only one game each.
Schiavone swept past Nuria Llagostera Vives of Spain 6-1, 6-0 in barely more than half an hour and will play No. 3 Elena Bovina of Russia, while Maleeva dispatched local player Els Callens 6-0, 6-1. Maleeva bought herself a match with another local, former No. 1 Kim Clijsters. Clijsters, seeded second, has made her return to the WTA Tour this week following a five-month injury layoff. She holds a 5-0 head-to-head record against Maleeva. Camerin will play Virginia Ruano Pascual of Spain in the other quarter.
Campionati
Defending champion Nicolas Massu of Chile advanced to the Campionati Internazionali di Sicilia quarterfinals when Potito Starace of Italy retired ill.
Starace was trailing 4-1 when he quit with a stomach illness.
Top-seeded Massu, the Olympic singles and doubles gold medalist, moved on to meet another Italian, fifth-seeded Filippo Volandri, who dispatched Spanish qualifier Galo Blanco 6-2, 6-1 for the third straight time this year.
It is Volandri's first quarterfinals appearance in Palermo in four attempts.
In another second-round match, eighth-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic came from behind to defeat Jose Acasuso of Argentina 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 for his second career quarterfinals.
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