Finals Hopefuls Cermak-Mertinak Reach Kuala Lumpur QFs

© Malaysian OpenStakhovsky and Youzhny advanced to the Kuala Lumpur quarter-finals with a straight-sets win.

Barclays ATP World Tour Finals hopefuls Frantisek Cermak and Michal Mertinak, who are currently No. 12 in the 2010 ATP Doubles Team Rankings, advanced to the Malaysian Open, Kuala Lumpur 2010 quarter-finals on Tuesday.

Second seeds Cermak and Mertinak improved to a 24-20 match record on the season when they overcame Tomasz Bednarek and Michal Przysiezny 6-3, 6-2 in just 59 minutes. This year, the duo has finished runner-up at two ATP World Tour events, including the Qatar ExxonMobil Open in Doha and ATP Studena Croatia Open in Umag.

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Stephen Huss and Ross Hutchins won 72 per cent of service points to edge past Colombians Alejandro Falla and Santiago Giraldo 5-7, 6-1, 10-8 in 79 minutes. Huss and Hutchins have a 1-2 record in ATP World Tour finals, picking up their lone title in September 2008 at the China Open in Beijing.

Sergiy Stakhovsky and Mikhail Youzhny, who lifted the Gerry Weber Open title (d. Damm-Polasek) in June, improved to a 10-4 season record after saving all four break points they faced to beat Jordan Kerr and Travis Parrott 6-4, 7-5 in 84 minutes.

Andrey Golubev and Denis Istomin, playing their seventh ATP World Tour tournament of the year, defeated Kevin Anderson and Michael Russell 6-4, 3-6, 10-7 in one hour and 33 minutes. They next face No. 4 seeds Eric Butorac and Jean-Julien Rojer, who ousted the wild card team of Russian Nikolay Davydenko and Malaysian Nazim Khan Mahmood Khan 6-3, 6-3.

At the PTT Thailand Open in Bangkok, fourth seeds Jonathan Erlich and Jurgen Melzer cruised into the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-4 win over American-Swedish pairing Brian Battistone and Andreas Siljestrom. Israeli Erlich and Austrian Melzer dropped just eight points on serve, including winning 87 per cent of points behind their first serve, to seal victory in just over an hour.

Germans Benjamin Becker and Michael Berrer put paid to the campaign of Julian Knowle and Andy Ram, defeating the second seeds 5-7, 7-6(4), 11-9 in just under two hours. Defeat comes as a blow to the Austrian-Israeli team’s outside hopes of qualifying for the Barclays ATP World Tour Finals. They are currently 16th in the 2010 ATP Doubles Team Rankings, with the Top 8 to qualify for the year-end championships in London.