Andy Roddick reached his second quarter-final of the year with a 6-4, 7-5 victory over Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan at the Delray Beach International Tennis Championship on Thursday.
Roddick avenged his loss to Istomin — in his other quarter-final appearance this year — at last month’s San Jose tournament.
Roddick is currently ranked No. 30, which is the lowest he has been since he held that same ranking in 2001. He has been dealing with hamstring and ankle problems this year and he is struggling to find a range with his game.
Photo: Reuters
Roddick only got half his first serves in against the 51st-ranked Istomin.
“I’m feeling better than I did a couple of matches ago,” Roddick said. “I served horrendously and still won, and was still able to break serve.”
In the second set, Istomin led the penultimate game 40-15, but then made four consecutive unforced errors to hand Roddick the service break.
Photo: EPA
Roddick eventually managed to serve out the match in the next game, but only after seeing off three break points and needing two match points.
“I got it done in the end,” Roddick said. “You want to close. The misses I had were positive misses because they were played on my terms. That was a big step.”
Roddick is scheduled to play seventh seed Kevin Anderson of South Africa in the quarter-finals after Anderson topped Xavier Malisse of Belgium 6-3, 3-6, 6-3.
The 2.01m Anderson had nine aces and won 77 percent of his first-serve points, although his first-serve percentage was only 55 percent.
“I thought it really gusty, really windy, and it wasn’t easy to get a good rhythm,” Anderson said. “It was tough for both of us because we couldn’t play the kind of tennis we wanted to play.”
Malisse was a two-time former Delray Beach champion (2005 and 2007) and he went into the match with a 25-9 record at the tournament. He did well when his forehand was kicking in, but otherwise struggled.
Fifth seed Philipp Kohlschreiber of Germany also advanced to the quarter-finals, defeating 57th-ranked Ivan Dodig of Croatia 6-2, 6-2.
Kohlschreiber saved both break points he faced on serve and took advantage of four of 10 break point opportunities he had on Dodig’s serve.
Kohlschreiber broke serve in the fifth and seventh games of the first set and the third and seventh games of the second set. He is 12-5 this year after reaching the semi-finals in Auckland, New Zealand, and Montpellier, France.
The German’s quarter-final opponent is Dudi Sela of Israel, who earned his spot with a 6-4, 6-4 win over Jarkko Nieminen of Finland.
Sela, who also reached the quarter-finals in Chennai, India, this season, won 25 of the 30 points when his first serve went into play.
“It was difficult conditions because the wind was swirling,” said Sela, who said the weather is similar to what he is used to in Israel. “It was tough to serve and you had to put your first serves in. I think I served very well and I didn’t give him any presents.”
MEXICAN OPEN
AP, ACAPULCO, Mexico
David Ferrer took a large stride toward back-to-back Mexican Open titles by winning his quarter-final on Thursday, while his main rival and Spanish compatriot Nicolas Almagro lost.
Top seed Ferrer cruised past another Spaniard, Pablo Andujar, 6-2, 6-4, while the other all-Spanish quarter-final saw Almagro beaten 6-4, 7-6 (7/5) by No. 8 Fernando Verdasco.
Verdasco was trailing 4-1 in the second-set tiebreaker, but won six of the last seven points to close out the match against the second-seeded Almagro at the Fairmont Acapulco Princess.
Almagro broke Verdasco when he was serving for the match at 5-4, but the tiebreaker collapse kept him from reaching his second consecutive final in Mexico and a fourth in the past five years.
He was runner-up to Ferrer last year and won the competition in 2008 and 2009. Ranked 12th in the world, Almagro also won the Brazil Open two weeks ago.
Ferrer’s semi-final opponent is Colombia’s Santiago Giraldo, who was a 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 winner over Argentina’s Carlos Berlocq.
Verdasco is scheduled to face Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland, who advanced by beating Jeremy Chardy of France 7-5, 6-1.
In the women’s quarter-finals, the three top-ranked Italian players all comfortably progressed to the final four.
Top seed Roberta Vinci of Italy routed Michaella Krajicek of the Netherlands 6-2, 6-0 and she is set to play her semi-final against fellow Italian Sara Errani, the No. 3 seed, who ousted seventh seed Estrella Cabeza Candela of Spain 6-4, 6-3.
Second seed Flavia Pennetta of Italy beat Colombia’s Mariana Duque-Marino 6-0, 6-4 and she is scheduled to face Romania’s Irina-Camelia Begu, who won 6-2, 6-2 over Slovakia’s Magdalena Rybarikova.
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