Events / Editor / 23 February 2007 /

After a first round stretching across the first three days and a scramble to complete the second round, the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament now moves into the business end in Rotterdam as the quarter-final action gets under way on Friday.

One of the stand-out matches brings together Spain's and Russia's Mikhail Youzhny.

Sixth seed Ferrer is chasing his second title of the year after his victory in Auckland and he has moved into the last eight smoothly enough, beating Belgium's Christophe Rochus 6-3 6-0 and then another Belgian, Kristof Vliegen, 6-4 6-2.

So he has already made up for last week's second-round exit in Marseille when he was also sixth seed.

Youzhny, whose only title this year has come in the doubles in Doha with Nenad Zimonjic, beat Dutch wild card Robin Haase 6-2 6-4 in the second round but had a much tougher task in the first round in putting out fourth seed Tomas Berdych 6-4 6-7 6-1.

Ferrer and Youzhny have only met twice before and they stand 1-1. Youzhny won in four sets in last year's US Open, while Ferrer's win came in Madrid back in 2003 in three sets.

Ferrer, who is 15th in the world compared to 22nd place Youzhny, is trading at 2.46 with Betfair to beat the man from Moscow and go into the semi-finals.

The winner of that quarter-final will play either fifth seed Novak Djokovic or Spain's second seed Tommy Robredo , who beat lucky loser Rik de Voest 6-0 6-4.

Like Youzhny and Ferrer, Djokovic and Robredo have only met twice and stand 1-1.

Serbia's Djokovic won in straight sets in last year's Wimbledon second round while in 2005, Robredo won in Paris in straight sets.

Djokovic, 19, is also looking for his second title of the year having won in Adelaide in early January. The 6ft 2in teenager will need his strong serve and volley game to be working well - and it has been so far this year - to get the better of Robredo and is trading at 1.72 with Betfair to make the last four.

But Robredo (2.36), an Aussie Open quarter-finalist before losing to Roger Federer and the runner-up in Auckland, has the game to make it tough for Djokovic.

In the top half of the draw, top seed Nikolay Davydenko has yet to drop a set after the Russian overcame Germany's Michael Berrer 6-3 6-4 and then outplayed France's Marc Gicquel 6-3 6-3. Now he takes on another German in Philipp Kohlschreiber, who shocked eighth seed and Czech holder Radek Stepanek 7-6 7-6 in the second round in two tough tie-breaks.

But it could be tricky for Davydeno, who lost in the Marseille first round last week when top seed. He and Kohlschreiber have met only once but the man from Augsburg won in straight sets in Den Bosch in 2005.

Davydenko is world number 3 compared to Kohlschreiber ranking of number 58 and is 1.21 to go through, but there are no guarantees. Look what happened to Gael Monfils against Dennis van Scheppingen, the world number 278.

Van Scheppingen's run finally came to an end on Thursday night when the lucky loser fell to Florian Mayer, the German winning 7-5 6-2.

He now meets third seeded Croatian Ivan Ljubicic, who beat Belgian Oliver Rochus 6-3 7-6.

They have met just once, last year in Vienna, when world number 8 Ljubicic won 6-3 6-3 against a man ranked 41 places below him. Ljubicic is available at 1.25 to make the last four and 5 to win the tournament.

Friday's quarter-finals
[6]D Ferrer (ESP) v M Youzhny (RUS)
[5]N Djokovic (SRB) v [2]T Robredo (ESP)

Not Before 7:30 PM
[3]I Ljubicic (CRO) v F Mayer (GER)
[1]N Davydenko (RUS) v P Kohlschreiber (GER)

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