Federer and Kratochvil cruise to Vienna quarter-finals

Michel Kratochvil in action against Jurgen Melzer on Thursday Keystone

Switzerland's male tennis stars had something to celebrate on Thursday with both Roger Federer and Michel Kratochvil booking two Swiss places in the quarter-finals of the ATP tournament in Vienna.

Kratochvil was the first to qualify for the next round after he defeated Austria’s, Jurgen Melzer, 7-6, 7-6. In what was a closely contested match, 22-year-old Kratochvil needed 135 minutes to clinch his victory.

The first set was decided on a tiebreak which Kratochvil had to fight hard to win. The Bernese player will now go on to face the Argentinean player, Guillermo Canas, who is 21 places above him in the ATP rankings.

Thursday’s result is yet another success for Kratochvil in his impressive late-season performance and it marks his third ATP quarter-final in four weeks.

Swiss number one, Roger Federer, got off to a shaky start in his match but he quickly found his form to beat Spain’s Albert Costa, 7-6, 6-2. Like fellow Swiss Kratochvil, the Basel player’s first set was decided on a tie-break which he won 7-1.

The second set proved to be a lot easier with the 20-year-old cruising to a 6-2 victory. Federer will go head-to-head with either Michael Chang or Stefan Koubek in the quarter-finals.

If the two Swiss win their respective matches, it could mean that they battle it out in the semis against one another, which would be a repeat of what happened in the ATP tournament in Marseille earlier this year.

Gagliardi knocked out

Although the Swiss men had cause for celebration, it was a different story for the Swiss women’s number three, Emmanuelle Gagliardi, who was knocked out in the second round of the WTA tournament in Shanghai.

The 25-year-old from Geneva, who last week reached the quarter-finals in Tokyo, was unable to follow up on her Japanese success and it was a Japanese player who ended her latest run.

In keeping with her higher world ranking, Ai Sugiyama (WTA 37) completed a straight sets win over Gagliardi (WTA 85), beating the Genevan 6-3, 6-3.

Hingis last Swiss standing

Gagliardi’s defeat means that world number one Martina Hingis is the only top Swiss women’s player still in action this week.

On Wednesday Swiss number two Patty Schnyder was knocked out in the second round of the WTA tournament in Filderstadt.

Hingis narrowly scraped into the Filderstadt quarter-finals after seeing off Bulgaria’s Magdalena Maleeva in three sets. Maleeva had earlier taken the first set 6-0.

The Swiss star, who is hoping to win her fifth Filderstadt title this week, will now face Russian “lucky loser” Tatiana Panova in the last eight following Panova’s surprise win over French seventh seed Nathalie Tauziat.

swissinfo with agencies