Federer eases into quarters

Tennis: Foreign round-up: Sania-Chuang upset fancied Anabel-Virginia

The Swiss was joined in the last eight by Andy Murray, who coped well with the blustery conditions in the Magic Box stadium to beat Spanish 16th seed Tommy Robredo 7-5, 6-1.
Federer, knocked out by Blake at last year's Beijing Olympics, laid down a marker in the opening game, breaking the American's serve with a crashing backhand return.

The 13-times grand slam winner, who has yet to win a title this year, wrapped up victory with a fifth ace on his first match point. He will play the winner of the match later on Thursday between sixth seed Andy Roddick and Nikolay Davydenko.

A single break of the Robredo serve in the 11th game of a tight first set and three more in the second were enough to seal a comfortable win for Murray and the Briton converted his first match point with a backhand return down the line.

He will play Juan Martin Del Potro on Friday after the Argentine battled past 11th-seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka 4-6, 6-4, 6-4 on Thursday.

Jankovic advances

In the women’s event, world number four Jelena Jankovic swept into the last eight with a 6-2, 6-2 victory over Russian Elena Vesnina on Thursday.

Jankovic stuttered when serving for the match at 5-1 in the second set but broke Vesnina for the sixth time in the next game when the Russian failed to deal with a thumping backhand.

Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko entered quarterfinal beating Russian Anna Chakvetadze 6-0, 2-6, 6-3.

Sania-Chuang through

India’s Sania Mirza and Chia-Jung Chuang of Chinese Taipei (Taiwan) upset second seed Spaniards Anabel Medina Garrigues and Virginia Ruano Pascual 7-6(4), 4-6, 10-7 to enter the doubles quarterfinal.

Somdev crashes out

In Zagreb, India’s Somdev Devvarman went down fighting to Brazilian Ricardo Hocevar in the second round of the $50,000 Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) challenger. 

Somdev, who is playing his first clay tournament of the season, lost 4-6, 6-7(4) on Wednesday. Hocevar in the quarterfinal plays Serbian Boris Pashanski, who beat German Daniel Brands 7-5, 7-6(3).