Russia’s Andrey Rublev returns the ball to Spain’s Fernando Verdasco during their second round match of the ATP Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha yesterday. Picture: Salim Matramkot/ The Peninsula
Top seed Dominic Thiem kept himself on course of picking up his tile in Doha as the Austrian overcame the challenge of Slovania Aljaz Bedene to advance into the quarter-finals of the Qatar ExxonMobil Open here yesterday.
The World No.5 took just one hour 46 minutes to win 7-5, 6-4 against a player ranked 25 places below him at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex.
Also moving into the quarters were generation next players of Borna Coric of Croatia and Russia Andrey Rublev along with qualifier Mirza Basic from Bosnia and Herzegovina. German Peter Gojowczyk joined the quartet into the next round.
Thiem’s win yesterday was against the tide, as earlier two seeded players from Spain, Fernando Verdasco (seventh) and Feliciano Lopez (eight) were shown the door.
The Spaniards were going along a trend set for the last two days wherein most of the seeded players were shown the door.
The 24-year-old however reversed the trend to book a place in the last-eight stage of the tournament, where he will take on the winner of the clash between 2013 winner Richard Gasquet and Stefanos Tsitsipas.
Coric set the tone for the day’s proceedings with a fluent 6-1, 6-3 win over Nikoloz Basilashvili to advance to the next round.
The Croatian who sent Spaniard Pablo Carreno Busta packing on Tuesday took 74 mintues to win his second round encounter and set up a clash with Rublev. The Russian defeated seventh seed Fernando Verdasco 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 to make it to the next round.
Rublev was delighted to win against Verdasco.
“I’m really happy. I’m happy I took my revenge because I lost against Fernando a few months ago. Today I won the tough match. And I’m really happy to be in quarterfinal,” said Rublev.
The 20-year-old Russian will take on Coric, who is one year older to him in today’s clash having won the only match they played earlier.
“I will try to play like I do always, according to my style of the game. We’ll see what’s going to happen. For sure I think he will try to do something different tomorrow. I think it’s going to be a good match. I hope we can show a good game. We will do our best tomorrow,” added the Russian.
Another Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez, seeded eight in Doha, suffered the same fate like Verdasco at the hands of World No.138 Basic, losing 6-4, 7-6.
