Basic, Copil Shock Seeds In Sofia

Mirza Basic stunned No. 4 seed Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-5, 7-6(5) at the Diema Xtra Sofia Open to reach his second quarter-final of the season on Wednesday.

The No. 129, who reached the last eight at the Qatar ExxonMobil Open (l. Pella), broke serve in the 12th game of the first set to take a one-set lead and secured a crucial mini-break at 5/5 in the second set tie-break to upset the German after one hour and 41 minutes.

Kohlschreiber, who has captured one tour-level title in each of the past four seasons, remains winless in 2018 while Basic awaits the winner of Thursday’s second-round match between Maximilian Marterer and No. 7 seed Joao Sousa.

Germany’s Marterer continued his strong start to the season with a 7-6(3), 6-4 win over Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri. Marterer, who is targeting a Top 50 place in the year-end ATP Rankings, hit 13 aces to set up the second-round clash with seventh seed Joao Sousa.

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Romania’s Marius Copil also produced an upset to beat No. 5 seed Robin Haase 7-6(5), 6-4 and book his place in the second round. The No. 93 defeated the Dutch No. 1, winning 88 per cent of points on serve, and will next face Slovenia’s Blaz Kavcic. The 30-year-old took just 78 minutes to beat Serbia’s Laslo Djere 6-4, 6-4.

Italy’s Andreas Seppi will meet third seed Gilles Muller for a place in the quarter-finals after dispatching of No. 92 Mikhail Youzhny 6-3, 6-4. Qualifier Jozef Kovalik came from 2-5 down in the third set and saved one match point to beat countryman Lukas Lacko 4-6, 6-2, 7-5 while Marcos Baghdatis recovered from an early first-set deficit to beat lucky loser Salvatore Caruso 7-6(3), 6-3.