Spanish top seed David Ferrer moved into the quarter-finals of the Ricoh Open in the Netherlands on Thursday after recording a straight-set win over Israeli journeyman Dudi Sela.
The match wasn’t as easy as the scorecard implies, but Ferrer held his nerves at crucial junctures to swift for a 6-4 6-4 conquest of the 68th-ranked Sela in one hour and 28 minutes.
The Spaniard’s service game was broken twice in the first set and once in the second, but he out-broke his adversary on both occasions to emerge victorious on Center Court here.
Moving on, he is scheduled to square-off against 7th seed Gilles Muller of Luxembourg, who rode on an impressive performance on serve to beat Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5 6-1.
Big-serving Ivo Karlovic, the No. 3 seed, also made further progress following an intense 7-6 7-6 victory against local hope Igor Sijsling in what was more or less a battle of serves.
The duo consolidated their respective service games through the combat, but it was Karlovic, who made use of his tall structure to unleash 20 aces and edge past his opponent in 84 minutes.
Up next for him awaits a challenge in Frenchman Adrain Mannarino, who dominated his way to a 6-4 6-2 triumph over qualifier Daniil Medvedev 6-4 6-2 in the other second-round encounter.
