British player and third seeded Cameron Norrie was sent out packing by wild-card entrant Janko Tipsarevic in his second round match on Thursday at the Houston Open.
The experienced Tipsarevic, who is returning to the ATP circuit after having missed the whole of 2018 with fitness issues, followed up his win against Tennys Sandgren with an easy 6-3, 6-4 win over Norrie in round two. The Serb had earlier beaten Sandgren 6-1, 7-6 and with this win over the British tennis player, he has set up a last-eight match against Sam Querrey.
The American Querrey, seeded eighth in Houston, also had no real worries in getting past Guillermo Garcia Lopez, dropping seven games in his straight-set win.
And this sets up a delicious match-up between Tipsarevic and Querrey, with these players having played each other seven times before this and the Serb having won four of those matches. The last of these encounters came at the 2016 US Open where Tipsarevic was a winner in four sets to make it to the round two.
In the other quarter-finals that have been decided so far, Christian Garin’s upset win over the second seeded Jeremy Chardy means he will face Swiss qualifier Henri Laaksonen in the final eight. Laaksonen overcame USA’s Ryan Harrison in straight sets.
Norway’s Casper Ruud will be up against Marcel Granollers for a place in the semi-final while the other two quarter-finalists will be decided in a few hours’ time.
Two-time defending champion Steve Johnson will be up against Daniel Elahi Galan and seventh seeded Jordan Thompson will take on Santiago Giraldo in their respective second round matches with the winners facing off in the last-eight. With the Monte-Carlo Masters up next week, a strong showing in this competition could go a long way in boosting player morale at this stage.
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