Tennis News
Seeds Stand Strong in Bastad, Struggle in Stuttgart
There were no upsets in Bastad yesterday, as all the seeds in action made it through to the quarter-finals relatively comfortably. Fifth seed Tommy Robredo was the only player to be pushed to three sets, but he finally overcame Andrey Golubev 3-6, 6-3, 6-2. Fernando Verdasco crushed Stephane Robert 6-1 6-1, and after disappointing performances at both the French Open and Wimbledon the Spaniard seems to be back to his best. Franco Skugor is the only unseeded man to win on the day, beating fellow qualifier Ervin Eleskovic 6-2, 6-3.
In Stuttgart things were very different, however, with top seed Nikolay Davydenko falling to Daniel Gimeno-Traver 7-6, 2-6, 6-1. The Russian is still trying to find his feet after coming back from a broken wrist, but was far from his top form yesterday. He double-faulted seven times and managed to win only 45% of the points on his second serve. Gael Monfils also struggled, but managed to shrug off a sloppy second set to secure a 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 victory.
