After Lleyton Hewitt quelled an early challenge from Serbia's Boris Pashanski, top seed Richard Gasquet turned on the heat on Italian Fabio Fognini to advance into the quarter-finals of the Mumbai Open on Thursday.
Second seed Hewitt from Australia, who exchanged fiery glances and words with his Serbian opponent, came through 7-6 (2), 6-2.
Gasquet needed 41 minutes to beat Fognini 6-0, 6-1 to set up a last eight clash with eighth seed Stefan Koubek at the Cricket Club of India.
Koubek was a 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 winner over Germany's Bjorn Phau.
Though Gasquet hasn't played Koubek earlier, he's was confident of halting the Austrian's fairytale run in India.
Koubek beat crowd favourite Mario Ancic to advance into the semi-finals in Mumbai in 2006 and also made it to the final in Chennai at the expense of Spain's Carlos Moya earlier this year.
"I am playing at my best tennis," said Gasquet, "This time he's going to stop in the quarters."
"I wasn't expecting to win so easily against a player in the main draw. I am feeling good, am physically 100 per cent and am ready and confident for tomorrow."
Hewitt, who had to play his second match of the day due to rain delays, was taken to task by the strong Serbian in the first set. Despite being a break down, Pashanski did not let Hewitt's stature and the one-sided crowd support affect him.
The Australian started with a double fault in the ninth game, where he was serving for the set at 5-3, and Pashanski made a few big returns to break back. The Serbian was on the verge of making the second break, when he had four chances of Hewitt's serve in the 11th game. But Hewitt came up with his best, slammed two aces and set up points with his striking forehand to push the set into the tie-break. Frustrated by the turn of events, Pashanksi further tickled the fighter in Hewitt by uttering a few uncalled for words and continued the battle into the game-break as the players crossed sides.
From there on, Hewitt stepped on the accelerator, winning the tie-break 7-2 and broke the Serbian's serve in the first and fifth games to pocket the second set 6-2.
"He didn't have too much class at the Davis Cup this weekend, and nothing much has changed," Hewitt said on court of the verbal punches during the match.
Six of the eight seeded players in the tournament advanced to the quarter-finals.
Wildcard entrant Nicolas Kiefer also motored to a 6-3, 6-3 win over Yen-Hsun Lu in the second round. The German, former world number four, has looked impressive on return and continued his claim as the dark horse in the title race with another solid performance.
The singles quarter-final line-up is: (1) Richard Gasquet vs (8) Stefan Koubek; (4) Jarkko Nieminen vs (5) Fabrice Santoro; (8) Olivier Rochus vs WC Nicolas Kiefer; (2) Lleyton Hewitt vs Rainer Schuettler.
There was a spate of withdrawals in the doubles draw, with Mahesh Bhupathi, Kiefer and Argentina's Sergio Roitman pulling out of the event. Kiefer, concentrating on his singles, has given doubles a miss while Bhupathi and Roitman withdrew because of injuries.
India's Rohan Bopanna and Aisam Qureshi advanced into the semi-finals after Roitman and Spain's Ivan Navarro conceded a walkover.
The Indian wildcard duo of Karan Rastogi and Mustafa Ghouse rallied from a set down against James Auckland and Ross Hutchins of Britain, but could not take the momentum into the match-tiebreak. Rastogi-Ghouse lost 2-6, 6-3, 3-10 in the first round.
Results (Singles 2nd round): [4] J Nieminen (FIN) d [Q] T Matsui (JPN) 6-0, 6-4; [5] F Santoro (FRA) d N Devilder (FRA) 2-6, 6-3, 6-2; [WC] N Kiefer (GER) d Y Lu (TPE) 6-3, 6-3; [8] O Rochus (BEL) d I Navarro (ESP) 3-6, 6-3, 6-4; S Koubek (AUT) d B Phau (GER) 4-6, 6-3, 7-5; [2] L Hewitt (AUS) d B Pashanski (SRB) 7-6(2), 6-2; [1] R Gasquet (FRA) d F Fognini (ITA) 6-0, 6-1; R Schuettler (GER) d V Troicki (SRB) 6-2, 6-7, 7-6.
First round: [2] L Hewitt (AUS) d [Q] T Chen (TPE) 6-3, 6-3; I Navarro (ESP) d [LL] P Raja (IND) 6-4, 6-1; B Pashanski (SRB) d S Roitman (ARG) 1-6, 6-3, 6-3.
