Saturday, December 12, 2009

Monfils tees up Davydenko meeting



Gael Monfils swept past Martin Vassallo Arguello to book himself a quarter-final tie against top seed Nikolay Davydenko.

Fifth-seeded Monfils made light work of his match against the Argentinian, dismissing him 6-4 6-2 to move into the last eight of the ATP Proton Malaysian Open in Kuala Lumpur.

Fernando Verdasco's second-round tie was even easier as the second seed took just 69 minutes to crush Slovakian Karol Beck 6-4 6-0

Joachim Johansson's fairytale retu! rn to the tour came to a disappointing end as Richard Gasquet triumphed 4-6 7-6(1) 6-2 in the battle of the big servers.

The Swede, who had defeated Lleyton Hewitt in his first match back in nearly a year, started well and fired in 24 aces but could not match Gasquet who stuck 26 aces.

Number four seed Fernando Gonzalez had a battle to reach the quarter-finals, eventually prevailing 6-4 3-6 6-4 to Indian qualifier Rohan Bopanna.

Tomas Berdych is the other name in the final eight after the number six seed fought past Simon Greul 6-3 4-6 6-3.