Klaasen/McLachlan Book Quarter-final Spot
Raven Klaasen and Ben McLachlan closed Wednesday play at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters with a 6-7(1), 6-3, 10-5 victory against Rajeev Ram and Joe Salisbury.
The South African-Japanese duo saved seven of the nine break points they faced to move past the Australian Open finalists in one hour and 42 minutes on Court des Princes. Klaasen and McLachlan, who are chasing their first title of the season in Monte-Carlo, will next meet Ivan Dodig and Filip Polasek or Daniel Evans and Neal Skupski for a semi-final spot.
Marcel Granollers and Horacio Zeballos took just 59 minutes to overcome Russians Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev 6-3, 6-1 on Court 2. Last year’s Rome champions won 74 per cent of their service points (32/43) to set up a quarter-final clash against Cristian Garin and Guido Pella.
Garin and Pella moved past Petros Tsitsipas and Stefanos Tsitsipas 6-4, 6-4 in 67 minutes. The unseeded duo dropped serve just once en route to victory, despite facing 11 break points.
Fabio Fognini and Diego Schwartzman recovered from a slow start to eliminate sixth seeds Wesley Koolhof and Lukasz Kubot 1-6, 6-4, 10-7. Fognini and Schwartzman trailed by a set and a break, and also found themselves 3/6 down in the Match Tie-break, but they claimed seven of the final eight points for a quarter-final spot.
The Italian-Argentine pair will meet top seeded Colombians Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah or last year’s Rolex Paris Masters champions Felix Auger-Aliassime and Hubert Hurkacz in the last eight.
Frenchmen Pierre-Hugues Herbert and Nicolas Mahut’s kept alive their bid for a second title in the Principality. The 2016 champions battled past Henri Kontinen and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 7-6(3), 7-5.