Del Potro, Anderson reach quarters in Vienna

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Del Potro, Anderson reach quarters in Vienna

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Juan Martin Del Potro and Kevin Anderson have advanced to the quarterfinals of the Erste Bank Open.

27 October,2011 02:34 am

Juan Martin Del Potro of Argentina and Kevin Anderson of South Africa had straight-set wins Wednesday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Erste Bank Open.The second-seeded Del Potro defeated Philipp Petzschner of Germany 6-3, 6-4 to reach his seventh quarterfinal of the season, and the sixth-seeded Anderson beat Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus 6-2, 7-6 (5).Del Potro, who is seeking one of three remaining spots at next months ATP finals, saved four break points in the opening set but held serve throughout against Petzschner, who won his only tour title here three years ago.His game for me is very difficult because I am a taller player and he played too much drop shots and slices, said Del Potro, who had a bye in the first round. So I am happy to beat him. But I need to play better if I want to win more matches.Del Potro will play either Tommy Haas of Germany or qualifier Aljaz Bedene of Slovenia for a place in the semifinals.Tommy is a very experienced player, that would be tough a match, Del Potro said.In first-round play, Steve Darcis of Belgium rallied to upset No. 7 Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 3-6, 6-0, 7-6 (2). Davydenko, coming off a semifinal in Moscow last week, lost a 4-0 lead in the deciding set and failed to serve out the match at 5-4 and again at 6-5.My serve was not good in the first set but I played well after settling down, Darcis said. I am over the moon with this win as Davydenko is still a world-class player.Also, Jarkko Nieminen of Finland defeated Robin Haase of the Netherlands 7-6 (3), 6-4 to set up a second-round match against top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga.