RIO DE JANEIRO — Frenchman Gael Monfils beat top-seeded Marin Cilic 6-3, 7-6 (8) Thursday to advance to the quarterfinals of the Rio Open.
Monfils finished Cilic off in 5 minutes after their match was interrupted by heavy rain on Wednesday night.
Next up for Monfils is No. 6 seed Daniel Schwartzman.
Cilic won only one match on the clay in Rio in his first tournament since he reached the Australian Open final in January.
No. 2 seed Dominic Thiem moved on to the next round when Spain’s Pablo Andujar retired due to injury in the seventh game of their match.
Thiem, who won the Rio Open last year, will face Spain’s Fernando Verdasco in the quarters. Verdasco beat Argentina’s Nicolas Kicker 6-7 (3), 6-2, 6-0.
Fourth-seeded Fabio Fognini also advanced with a 4-6, 6-4, 7-6 (6) victory against American Tennys Sandgren.
The Italian will face Slovenian Alijaz Bedene, who eliminated No. 3 seed Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain with a 6-2, 5-7, 6-2 win.
Carreno Busta lost last year’s final against Thiem.
Tiafoe topples del Potro
Frances Tiafoe turned the tables on Juan Martin del Potro Thursday, toppling the second-seeded former champion 7-6 (8/6), 4-6, 7-5 to reach the quarterfinals of the ATP tournament at Delray Beach, Florida.
The 20-year-old American needed four match points to finish off Argentina’s del Potro, the latest seed to fall in a tournament that saw top seed and defending champion Jack Sock, sixth-seeded John Isner and ninth-seeded Milos Raonic beaten on Wednesday.
Tiafoe booked a quarterfinal meeting with eighth-seeded South Korean Chung Hyeon, a 6-4, 7-6 (7/4) winner over tenacious Croatian qualifier Franko Skugor.
Del Potro, the 2011 Delray Beach champion and a semi-finalist the past two years, beat Tiafoe in straight sets in their most recent meeting in the first round of the Australian Open in January.
In the quarters he will face Australian Open semifinalist Chung, ranked 30th in the world, for the first time.
The 21-year-old South Korean had to dig in to finish off the 303rd-ranked Skugor, who rallied from 0-4 down in the second set, saving three match points as he forced the tiebreaker.
Chung prevailed on his fourth match point, when Skugor coughed up a double-fault.
Canadian 18-year-old Denis Shapovalov reached his first quarterfinal of the season with a 6-7 (6/8), 6-4, 6-4 victory over 21-year-old American Jared Donaldson.
Shapovalov next faces American Taylor Fritz, who fired 13 aces in a 6-1, 4-6, 6-3 victory over Russian veteran Mikhail Youzhny.
Wawrinka hobbles out
Second-seeded Stan Wawrinka hobbled out of the Open 13 second round with a recurrence of his left knee problem, retiring when trailing 6-4, 1-1 against Ilya Ivashka Thursday.
After abandoning against the 193rd-ranked Belarusian, the three-time Grand Slam champion said he struggled with his troublesome left knee from 3-3 in the first set onward.
This loss follows the 32-year-old Swiss player’s unexpected first-round defeat to 259th-ranked Dutchman Tallon Griekspoor at the ABN AMRO World Tournament in Rotterdam last week.
Ivashka advanced to the quarterfinals against Frenchman Nicolas Mahut, who upset sixth-seeded Gilles Muller of Luxembourg 3-6, 6-2, 6-4.
Meanwhile, Tomas Berdych rallied to reach the last eight. The fourth-seeded Czech labored to a 5-7, 7-6 (4), 6-3 win against unheralded Italian Stefano Travaglia, who had 18 aces. Berdych next plays seventh-seeded Damir Dzumhur of Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Eighth-seeded Filip Krajinovic of Serbia and ninth-seeded Russian Karen Khachanov also advanced, but far more easily in straight sets.
Krajinovic won 6-3, 6-3 against French veteran Gilles Simon. He next faces third-seeded Frenchman Lucas Pouille.
The 21-year-old Khachanov was in clinical form in a 6-2, 6-1 win against Mischa Zverev. He next plays 36-year-old Frenchman Julien Benneteau. — Agencies
