Fourth seed Gilles Simon cruised past Carlos Berlocq of Argentina at the Estoril Open on Thursday for a place in his fifth ATP World Tour quarter-final of the year.
World No. 22 Simon, who started the year at No. 41 in the South African Airways 2011 ATP Rankings, recorded a 6-2, 6-1 win in 84 minutes.
Berlocq was broken to 30 in sixth game of the 43-minute first set and went onto save three set points at 2-5.
Simon raced into a 5-0 lead in the second set, including a 16-point fifth game when he saved three break points. The Frenchman converted four of 10 break point opportunities in total for his third straight win over Berlocq. He has an 18-10 match record on the season.
Simon, who won his eighth ATP World Tour title at Sydney (d. Troicki) in January, goes onto meet Canadian Milos Raonic for the first time.
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Fifth seed Raonic won 70 per cent of service points and his six aces to beat Portuguese wildcard Joao Sousa 6-3, 6-3 in 72 minutes.
Raonic moved into a 4-1 lead, breaking 22-year-old Sousa to 30 in the third game and to 15 in the fifth game. He clinched the 32-minute first-set with a third service break to 15.
This year's San Jose titlist (d. Verdasco) and Memphis runner-up (l. to Roddick), won five straight games to open up a 3-0 lead in the second set before Sousa regained his composure. Raonic was broken to 30 in the
seventh game, but it was too little too late from Sousa, the World No. 254.World No. 27 Raonic, the second-youngest player in the Top 100 at 20 years, 3 months (after No. 69 Grigor Dimitrov), improved to a 22-7 season record.
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