Italian Thomas Fabbiano secured both his biggest win in terms of opponent rank, and tournament level, as he defeated no. 38 ranked Gilles Muller of Luxembourg, 6-4, 7-5, in Chennai. He  subsequently moved into an ATP quarter-final for the first time.
The usually strong-serving Muller did produce fourteen aces, but struggled to remain consistent on second serve, as Fabbiano pounced to break twice in each set. Muller did break himself once in each set, but failed to stay in touch. It represents a slow start to the year for Muller, who had struggled in his first match against Karen Khachanov.
Briton Aljaz Bedene moved into the quarter-finals of the Chennai Open for successive years, as he recovered from an opening set loss to beat Italian Luca Vanni 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. Bedene will have an excellent chance to at least reach the semi-finals of the event in which he was a defeated finalist last year. He faces Indian Ramkumar Ramanathan for that place in the semi-finals after he benefited from Kevin Anderson’s injury withdrawal. He instead faced lucky loser Alexander Kudryavtsev, beating the Russian in a tight three-set encounter 3-6, 6-4, 6-4.
Third seed Benoit Paire beat Lukas Rosol 7-5, 7-5 and will face Fabbiano in an unlikely quarter-final.
Borna Coric and Roberto Bautista-Agut will play on Friday in what is likely to be ones of the best matches of the tournament.
Top seed and former Australian Open champion Stan Wawrinka will meet Guillermo Garcia Lopez for a tenth career meeting. Wawrinka won both of their meetings in 2015, though none of them were straight-set victories. Wawrinka leads the head-to-head six-three.
