Tsonga strides on

 

Originally published on: 26/02/10 12:17

The world number 14 from France won 25 of 28 first-serve points as he dominated his Uzbek opponent from start to finish winning 6-1 6-4.

Tsonga will now meet seventh seed Kristof Vliegen after he also cruised past Ivo Minar from the Czech Republic 6-4 6-1.

The Belgian took exactly an hour on centre court and won without conceding a single break point.

Another Frenchman, Jeremy Chardy, is also into the next round after coming through untroubled at the expense of Swiss qualifier Marco Chiudinelli, 6-4 6-4.

Fourth seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez had no problems in overcoming Leonardo Mayer, winning in straight sets 6-4 7-5.

Up next for Garcia-Lopez is a quarter-final meeting with Frederico Gil of Portugal, who fought from a set down to oust the highest remaining local favourite in the draw Rik De Voest, 4-6 7-5 6-4.

De Voest’s compatriot Izak van der Merwe, a wildcard entrant into the main draw at Montecasino, also bowed out despite winning the first set against qualifier Sebastien De Chaunac.

In a closely contested match, the French qualifier succumbed to his opponent’s big first serve and lost the first set in a tie-break, before mounting a recovery to win 6-7 (3/7) 7-5 7-6 (7/5) and set up a quarter-final meeting with compatriot Chardy.

The other last-eight tie will see number eight seed Marcos Baghdatis from Cyprus take on second-seeded Spaniard David Ferrer.

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