Wildcard Rupesh Roy stormed into the quarterfinals of the ITF Men's Futures Bellary Open 2007, staging a 5-7, 7-5, 6-3 comeback win over seventh seed Serbian Adrian-Vasile Gavrila at the Police Gymkhana courts here on Wednesday.

In a thrilling encounter that lasted two hours and 38 minutes, Roy had his back to the wall after losing the first set and trailing 3-5 in the second. But he then staged a remarkable recovery to win four games in a row and take the second set. In the decider, the Indian broke his opponent twice to book his berth in the last eight.

In the first set, both players held serve till the eighth game. Then, it was breaks galore with Gavrila breaking in the ninth and Roy restoring parity in the next. With the score reading 5-5, Gavrila broke Roy again in the eleventh game which saw seven deuces. The Serb then held his serve in the next game to win the first set 7-5.

Great start

Gavrila continued from were he had left off in the first set by breaking Roy in the first game of the second set and then holding serve to take a 2-0 lead. Games went with serve till 5-3, with Gavrila serving for the match, when a sense of complacency crept into his game, resulting in too many unforced errors. Roy grabbed the opportunity with both hands and in a stunning reversal of fortunes, went on to win four games in a row.

Roy, whose first serves were not up to the mark, more than made up with crisp volleys and unleashed a couple of smashes which sent his opponent scurrying for cover.

Gavrila looked a tired man in the decider, Roy getting the decisive break in the seventh game and not looking back from there.

In the quarterfinals, Roy will play Ashutosh Singh, who breezed past Vijayant Malik 6-2, 6-4. With Roy playing Ashutosh, the presence of one Indian in the last four stage is assured.

In another major upset, Australian Philipp Oswald sent Romanian second seed Teodor-Dacian Craciun packing 7-5, 6-3. India's Sunil Kumar Sipayea missed out a quarterfinal berth after going down 6-4, 3-6, 6-2 to Serbian sixth seed Darko Madjarovski.

Results (prefix denotes seeding, Indians unless mentioned):
Singles, pre-quarterfinals: Rupesh Roy bt 7-Adrian-Vasile Gavrila (Rom) 5-7, 7-5, 6-3; Ashutosh Singh bt Vijayant Malik 6-2, 6-4; Rainer Eitzinger (Aut) bt Vivek Shoken 6-2, 6-3; 5-Dekel Valtzer (Isr) bt Ivan Anikanov (Ukr) 6-3, 6-1; 4-Ivan Cerovic (Cro) bt Purav Raja 6-2, 6-3; Philipp Oswald (Aut) bt 2-Teodor-Dacian Craciun 7-5, 6-3; 6-Darko Madjarovski (Ser) bt Sunil Kumar Sipaeya 4-6, 6-3, 6-2; Robert Belak (Ser) bt Shivang Mishra 7-6 (7-2), 6-4.
Doubles, quarterfinals: Vijay Kannan/ Alexey Kedryuk (Kaz) bt Rohan Gajjar/ Rupesh Roy 7-6 (8-6), 6-3; Rainer Eitzinger/ Phillip Oswald (Aut) bt Ivan Cerovic (Cro)/ Dekel Valtzer (Isr) 7-6 (7-5), 6-4; Ashutosh Singh/ Vivek Shokeen bt Teodor-Dacian Craciun/ Adrian-Vasile Gavrila (Rom) 6-3, 6-4.Vijay Sundar Prashanth/ Ranjeet V Murugesan bt Pavol Cerenak/ Marek Semjan (Svk) 3-6, 6-3, 10-5.