Nishikori to face Ancic in Stockholm Open quarterfinals
STOCKHOLM, Sweden -- Wild card Kei Nishikori advanced to the quarterfinals of the Stockholm Open on Thursday, beating Dominik Hrbaty 6-1, 1-6, 7-5.
Nishikori will face No. 2 Mario Ancic, a 7-6 (4), 6-4 winner over Steve Darcis.
Top-seeded David Nalbandian, No. 3 Jarkko Nieminen and No. 4 Robin Soderling also reached the last eight.
Nalbandian beat Joachim Johansson 6-3, 6-2; Nieminen topped Arnaud Clement 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-2 to reach the quarters for the third straight year; and Soderling ousted "lucky loser" Juan Monaco 6-3, 6-3.
Nalbandian, ranked seventh in the world, broke Johansson at 5-3 and then served out the first set at love.
He broke the Swede -- a former top-10 player who had not played a match in a year because of a shoulder injury -- to lead 5-2 in the second set and then held his serve. Johansson announced his retirement from tennis in February but was given a wild card after Roger Federer withdrew from the tournament last week.
Nalbandian will meet seventh-seeded Albert Montanes, who rallied from a set down to beat George Bastl 1-6, 6-3, 6-2.
Nieminen will play Oscar Hernandez and Soderling will face Rainer Schuettler in the other quarterfinals. Hernandez and Schuettler won their second-round matches Wednesday.
Nishikori, who has jumped 212 spots to 77th in the rankings since the beginning of the year, was bothered by a sore knee in his opening match against eighth-seeded Marcel Granollers on Monday.
"It was better than the first match, he said. "I feel it is 80 percent healed. I didn't feel much pain during the match."
The 18-year-old Nishikori had three break points to 5-4 in the third set when Hrbaty fell behind 0-40, but the Slovak saved them all.
In the next game, Hrbaty was only two points from the match at 30-all, but the Japanese teen eventually held his serve.
"I just concentrated on keeping my serve," he said. "I'm glad that I did not go down after failing to break his serve from 0-40. The next game was difficult."
Nishikori broke to 6-5 with a forehand winner and then held to love to wrap up the match.
"This is the first time I'm winning so constantly and it surprises me," Nishikori said. "Of course I haven't faced anyone from top 10, but it gives me confidence. Now I wish to advance to the semi."
Darcis staved off two set points when trailing 15-40 and 5-6 in the opening set. Ancic won the ensuing tiebreak when the Belgian missed a backhand passer.
Ancic broke for the first and only time in the match to lead 3-2 when Darcis missed two straight backhand shots at 30-all. Leading 5-4, the Croat held his serve to love to end the match.
Defending champion Ivo Karlovic skipped the tournament, held for the 40th time.
Copyright 2008 by The Associated Press
