Friday 30th October 2009
Cilic and Monfils through
Marin Cilic and Gael Monfils maintained their late challenge to reach the ATP World Tour Finals next month.
Both of them progressed through to the Bank Austria Tennis Trophy quarter-finals.
There are two places up for grabs in the end-of-season showpiece at London's O2 Arena and top seed Cilic, currently ranked 12th in the year-to-date rankings, coasted through to the last eight with a 7-6 (9/7) 6-4 win over Daniels Brands.
Monfils' progress was not as simple as he was taken to three sets by world number 113 Jan Hajek, before recovering to win 6-1 2-6 6-4.
Feliciano Lopez, the 2004 champion, set up a quarter-final meeting with Cilic after the sixth-seeded Spaniard took just 82 minutes to defeat local hope Daniel Koellerer 6-3 6-3.
Monfils, meanwhile, will play Janko Tipsarevic after the Serbian recorded a 7-6 (7/3) 6-1 win over German lucky loser Michael Berrer.
In the day's other match, Austrian seventh seed Jurgen Melzer gave his home fans reason to cheer with a straightforward 6-4 7-5 win over qualifier Dominik Hrbaty.
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