Cream of Tour Scrubs Advance at ATP Casablanca

Posted on April 7, 2005

All three seeds in action Wednesday at the ATP claycourt stop in Casablanca advanced in (2) Filippo Volandri (d. Nieminen from a set down), (7) Gilles Muller (d. Tipsarevic), and (8) Christophe Rochus (d. D.Sanchez in three).

"I think he played very great tennis, he fought very well, and it came down to a few points at the end," Volandri said in generic tour post-conference match-speak. "The most important is that I won and I am really happy to be in my third quarterfinal this year."

In the lone all-unseeded match, Czech Tomas Zib defeated unseeded Spanish defending champ Santiago Ventura in straight sets.

"Today was the first time I was playing against him, I knew Santiago is a strong candidate on clay," Zib said. "He won the title here last year. Defeating Rainer (Schuettler) in the first round gave me a lot of confidence and I went into the match thinking I was playing great tennis and I had nothing to lose."

On court Thursday in Casablanca are Juan "The Principality" Monaco vs. (5) Florian "Oscar" Mayer, (Q) Gicquel vs. the resurgent Clement in an all-French, (6) Puerta vs. Almagro, and Vanek vs. (Q) Simon.