Monfils fires 10 aces against Grosjean
METZ, France -- Top-seeded Gael Monfils reached the Open de Moselle quarterfinals by dominating fellow Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean 6-1, 6-1 on Thursday.
Monfils, who had a first-round bye, fired 10 aces and broke Grosjean six times in their first matchup in three years.
Former world No. 4 Grosjean, a wild-card entry ranked 1,147th, had shoulder surgery last December and won his first match this week since Wimbledon in 2008. He had four break points in the very first game against Monfils but was unable to convert them.
Need the scores from any match played in today's tournaments? Monfils will next play Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, who upset eighth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 6-4, 7-6 (3).
Tipsarevic earned his first victory over Ljubicic, who beat Monfils in the 2005 final.
Fourth-seeded Philipp Petzschner of Germany beat wild card Michael Llodra of France 7-6 (3), 6-3 in their second-round match.
Llodra missed a set point at 5-4 in the first set, then Petzschner raced 5-2 ahead in the second before closing the match on his second match point.
Petzschner reached the Metz quarterfinals for the second time, having advanced to the last eight in his tournament debut in 2003. He will take on Richard Gasquet of France, who outlasted Christophe Rochus of Belgium 7-5, 4-6, 6-2.
The Frenchman is trying to rediscover his form after being banned two and a half months for testing positive for cocaine at a tournament in Miami in March. Gasquet said he inadvertently ingested the drug by kissing a woman in a nightclub.
Copyright 2009 by The Associated Press
