Agassi sets up quarter-final clash with Ferrero

Andre Agassi won a late night battle of wills to see off Spanish wildcard Feliciano Lopez 7-6, 6-7, 7-5 at the Madrid Masters on Thursday and set up a quarter-final meeting with Juan Carlos Ferrero.

Agassi needed every ounce of his resolve to beat Lopez, a tricky left-hander with a gigantic serve who was roared on by a packed crowd at the Madrid Rockodrome.

Lopez saved a match point on his own serve in the second-set tiebreak before finally giving Agassi a chance in game 11 of the third, double-faulting on the first of three break points.

The American second seed, serving with a 6-5 lead, missed his second match point but eventually clinched victory in two hours 23 minutes with a punched forehand beyond Lopez's reach.

"It's disappointing that someone had to lose a match like that," Agassi said. "I was prepared for him but I just couldn't do anything with his serve.

"It was a great match and I feel pretty fortunate to get through it."

Agassi will go on to face Ferrero in a rematch of the French Open quarter-final won by the Spaniard.

Ferrero, seeded fifth, was also taken to three sets by Alex Corretja but his 3-6, 6-0, 6-1 victory was easy by comparison.

Corretja took advantage of some sloppy mistakes from his fellow Spaniard to win the first set but Ferrero finished up playing near-perfect tennis from deep behind the baseline.

"I lost faith in my game and my repertoire of shots in the second set," said Corretja. "I couldn't maintain my level."

Sebastian Grosjean, seeded seventh, moved smoothly through to the last eight with a 7-6, 6-1 success against Mikhail Youzhny of Russia.

The Frenchman goes on to meet Agustin Calleri, the Argentine qualifier who overcame 15th seed Thomas Johansson of Sweden 6-4, 6-4.

That was a blow to Johansson's hopes of making the Tennis Masters Cup in Shanghai at the end of the season.

Johansson, the Australian Open champion, needs to move up from 14th at the start of the week to overtake Albert Costa, who was in eighth place, to take the last berth open to a grand slam winner ranked between eight and 20.

NOVAK CLOSING IN

Also putting his Shanghai place in jeopardy was Carlos Moya, who missed a match point before going down 6-7, 6-4, 7-5 to the dangerous Jiri Novak.

After two evenly matched sets Spaniard Moya, the number eight seed, served for the match at 5-3 only for his nerve to fail him.

Moya then missed a simple backhand for the match with Novak serving at 4-5 and paid the price as the number 11 seed roared back to break in the next and serve out for the win in two hours 17 minutes.

The Czech was in 11th place going into Madrid but he is now closing in on one of the top seven places in the ATP Entry System and a spot in Shanghai.

Roger Federer, who was clinging on to that seventh place, should find his position strengthened at the end of the week after he beat Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador 6-3, 6-4 in the final match on centre court on Thursday.

The first two matches of the day were also one-sided affairs.

Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand scampered his way to a 6-4, 6-2 success against Ivan Ljubicic of Croatia, while Fabrice Santoro of France was enjoying an even simpler 6-0, 6-2 victory over David Nalbandian of Argentina.

Paradorn, who beat Brazil's Gustavo Kuerten and British fourth seed Henman in the first two rounds, made it three classy wins out of three as he ran Ljubicic around the court.