South Africa’s Kevin Anderson joined the exodus of Estoril Open seeds on Thursday when he slumped to a 6-4, 3-6, 6-1 defeat to Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez on the back of nine double faults.
The exit of second seed Anderson left the rebranded clay-court event without its top four players even before the quarter-final stage.
Top seed Feliciano Lopez lost 24 hours earlier and third seed Tommy Robredo withdrew injured, while fourth seed Leonardo Mayer was another early victim.
Photo: EPA
Fifth-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet, a finalist in 2007 and 2012, remains the highest seed still in contention along with seventh seed Nick Kyrgios and eighth seed Gilles Muller.
Muller reached the last eight when he posted a 4-6, 6-3, 7-6 (9/7) defeat of two-time champion Albert Montanes, saving two match points in the tiebreaker.
Anderson went down in just over two hours, losing serve three times, but crushed mainly by his own serving errors.
He contributed his last double fault in the penultimate game on a break point to trail 5-1, before being put out of his misery a game later.
Anderson has reached the semi-finals or better four times this year and now stands 33-31 on clay in his career.
World No. 31 Garcia-Lopez owns titles this season at Zagreb and he won on clay in Bucharest last weekend. He now stands 18-8 this year and 7-1 on clay.
“I’m delighted with the win, especially since last week I won a tournament,” Garcia-Lopez said. “It’s not easy, especially since I’m pretty tired. The first match of a tournament is always difficult and Anderson is a very aggressive player. I’m playing with confidence right now and hope to win another round or two.”
Garcia-Lopez’s best Estoril showings were semi-finals in 2005 and 2010.
Spain’s Pablo Carreno Busta beat compatriot David Vega Hernandez, who replaced Robredo in the draw, 6-1, 6-2, while Croatian teenager Borna Coric outlasted the last Portuguese in the field, beating Rui Machado 6-4, 5-7, 6-1.
ISTANBUL OPEN
Bulgarian second seed Grigor Dimitrov on Thursday powered his way past Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan to breeze into the quarter-finals of the Istanbul Open.
Dimitrov closed out the match 6-3, 6-2 to keep himself on track for a meeting in the final on Sunday with top seed and world No. 2 Roger Federer, who eased into the quarter-finals the day earlier.
Golubev, the world No. 117, never showed any sign of getting into the match, with Dimitrov always in control and able to complete his day’s work in less than 1 hour, 5 minutes.
Looking strong on his serve, world No. 11 Dimitrov offered his opponent no break points and won almost 90 percent of the points on his own serve.
Meanwhile, Uruguayan third seed Pablo Cuevas made heavy work of Russian qualifier Teymuraz Gabashvili 4-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil knocked out Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan for a place in the quarters, 7-6 (7/4), 6-3.
BMW OPEN
Top seed Andy Murray began his clay-court season with a routine 6-2, 6-2 victory over local qualifier Mischa Zverev to reach the BMW Open quarter-finals on Thursday.
Murray saved all of six break points he faced, including three in the final game while serving for the match. He broke serve for a 2-1 lead in the second set and saved three break points in the next game before holding.
Zverev had little of the patience needed on clay, while Murray mixed his shots well.
Murray took time off after his marriage and practiced in Barcelona last week, before arriving in Munich with the latest addition to his coaching staff, Jonas Bjorkman, a nine-time winner of Grand Slam doubles titles.
Murray, who has never won a title on clay, next faces Lukas Rosol. The Czech beat Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine for the first time, 7-5, 6-2.
Dominic Thiem of Austria upset eighth seed Fabio Fognini, last year’s Munich runner-up, 6-3, 6-0.
Pablo Andujar, last week’s runner-up in Barcelona, retired when he was 4-1 down against Gerald Melzer of Austria.
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