Marseille, France (Sports Network) - Top seed Tomas Berdych and heavy French
crowd favorite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga moved into the quarterfinals at the $700,000
Open 13 tennis event.
The former Wimbledon runner-up Berdych outlasted capable Latvian wild card
Ernests Gulbis 6-4, 6-7 (10-12), 6-4 in 2 hours, 12 minutes, while a third-
seeded Tsonga erased former world No. 3 Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 (7-1), 6-3
on the indoor surface at Palais des Sports. Gulbis smacked 19 aces in a losing
effort, as Berdych broke three times, compared to only one break for the
tough-luck loser.
The former Australian Open runner-up Tsonga captured this event back in 2009.
Meanwhile, former top-10 Frenchman and 2007 Marseille champion Gilles Simon
posted a first-round win, as this week's sixth seed beat Dutchman Robin Haase
7-5, 7-5.
Promising Aussie Bernard Tomic booked a spot in the quarterfinals by handling
Indian Somdev Devvarman 6-3, 7-5 in his second-round affair.
In some other opening-round play, 2010 runner-up Julien Benneteau beat wild
card and fellow Frenchman Lucas Pouille 7-6 (7-0), 6-3 and Russian qualifier
Dmitry Tursunov vanquished French qualifier Edouard Roger-Vasselin 7-5, 6-3.
On Thursday, second-seeded Juan Martin del Potro will face French veteran
Michael Llodra, the 2010 champion and 2009 runner-up in Marseille, in a
rematch of last year's final here, which was won by the tall Argentine. The
former U.S. Open champion del Potro is fresh off his title in Rotterdam last
week.
The Sports Network