After a large-scale cull of seeds in the opening two rounds, Australian seventh seed Lleyton Hewitt and Spanish eighth seed Juan Carlos Ferrero helped patch up the form book on Thursday as they both reached the Hamburg Masters Series quarter-finals. Hewitt overcame a mid-match lapse to see off compatriot Andrew Ilie 6-2 7-6 (7/2) having twice unsuccessfully served for the match and missed four match points prior to a tiebreak during which he regained his form.
The Australian will now play Argentine Franco Squillari, a 6-4 6-3 winner over fellow Argentinian Gaston Gaudio. Ferrero, bidding for his fifth title of the year, cantered into the last eight after beating Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador 6-4 6-3 for his 14th straight victory.
Spain got another boost when Albert Portas also progressed by defeating French 12th seed Sebastien Grosjean 6-3 4-6 6-2. Jan-Michael Gambill, the US 14th seed, lost to Sweden's Thomas Johansson, who booked a meeting with Ferrero winning 3-6 6-4 6-4 to leave just two seeds in the 2.95 million event, the final warm-up before French Open.
German interest ended when Fabrice Santoro of France, conqueror of Andre Agassi in the previous round, whipped Nicolas Kiefer 6-3 6-3 to make it four wins in four outings against his opponent.

Kiefer was hoping to emulate Michael Stich, the last home winner in 1993, but was totally dominated, save for a brief period when he came back from 0-3 to 2-3 in the second set.
Bureau Report