Black Tennis Pros

METZ, France — Top-seeded Gael Monfils reached the Open de Moselle quarter-finals by thrashing fellow Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean 6-1, 6-1 on Thursday.

Following a first-round bye, Monfils fired 10 aces and broke Grosjean six times in their first matchup in three years. Former world No. 4 Grosjean, a wild-card entry ranked 1,147th, underwent shoulder surgery last December and won his first match this week since 2008 Wimbledon. He had four break points in the very first game but was unable to convert them.

Monfils will next face Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, who upset eighth-seeded Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia 6-4, 7-6 (3).

Ljubicic, who beat Monfils in the 2005 final, fought for nearly two hours before losing to Tipsarevic for the first time.

Fourth-seeded Philipp Petzschner of Germany beat wild card Michael Llodra of France 7-6 (3), 6-3 in their second-round match.

Llodra missed a set point at 5-4 in the first set, then Petzschner raced 5-2 ahead in the second before closing the match on his second match point.

Petzschner reached the Metz quarter-finals for the second time, having advanced to the last eight on his tournament debut in 2003. He will take on Richard Gasquet, who fought more than two hours to edge Belgian Christophe Rochus 7-5, 4-6, 6-2.

The Frenchman is trying to rediscover his form after he endured a ban of two and a half months for testing positive for cocaine at a tournament in Miami in March. Gasquet said he inadvertently ingested the drug by kissing a woman in a nightclub.

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French 24 - Local favourites Gaël Monfils and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga have scored key victories to make it to the eight final rounds of the French Open.

Once believed out of the running due to persistent pain in his left knee, Monfils says he is hampered no more and is approaching the final full of confidence.

"One might call this the first step," said Monfils. "It is always a pleasure to spend a second week at a Grand Slam."

But Monfils, who made it only to the semifinals in 2008, says he is far from satisfied.

"Now, one must try to go much farther," he said.

In the next round, Monfils will face America’s Andy Roddick, the world number six, whom he has not beaten yet this season.

Roddick is "a great player, very strong," said Monfils. "I’ve lost to him twice this year. It would be a superb comeback, before my public, in France,” he said of a possible victory against his next opponent.

But Monfils wants first to savour his victory against Austria’s Jürgen Melzer. He will ponder a win against Roddick tomorrow, "but not now," he said.


"Wouldn't it be nice to win?"

On the Philippe Chatrier Court, Tsonga bested Belgium’s Christophe Rochus in three sets (6-2, 6-2, 6-2) and thus also qualified for the final eight. It was a result that might have surprised some, but not him.

“Nobody thought that I could evolve like that on the clay,” Tsonga said. "I was often asked, 'What are you hoping for? What would be good for you? To make it through an eighth of the final, a quarter?'"

Determined to put an end to this sort of speculation, Tsonga hit a volley back to the journalists: "And to win, wouldn’t that be nice?"

In the coming round, Tsonga will face Argentinean Juan Martin Del Potro, a player who is very at ease on the clay and who defeated Russia's Igor Andreev (ranked 25th) in an all-out match.

But when an Argentinean journalist asked del Potro who he expects to win in his match against the local favourite, the fifth-ranked player answered with no hesitation: “the local”.

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