Third seed Roberto Bautista Agut advances to Chennai Open quarters

Chennai: Spain's third seed Roberto Bautista Agut made a smooth entry into the men's quarterfinals at the ATP Chennai Open tennis tournament with a fluent 6-3 6-2 win over German Peter Gojowczyk here on Thursday.

In other matches, unseeded Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain lost his pre-quarterfinal to world number 38 Yen Hsun Lu 4-6 4-6 in 73 minutes.

Sixth seed Lu from Chinese Taipei will take on Agut in the quarterfinals. Top seed Stanislas Wawrinka, eighth seed Gilles Muller and fourth seed David Goffin have advanced to the quarterfinals from the top half.

Guillermo Garcia Lopez, the fifth seed, also progressed to the quarterfinals with a 6-7 (1) 6-2 6-0 over Japanese number two Ito Tatsuma.

Making his third consecutive appearance at the Chennai Open, Agut had reached his first ATP tour final here in 2013, losing to Janko Tipsarevic. The Spaniard today was found wanting in his first match of the season. He was pulled up several times for foot fault while serving which seemed to bother his flow.

As the second set rolled out, Gojowczyk was expected to steady himself from the series of errors that he committed in the first set but surrendered the initiative after rallying to exchange breaks in the third and fourth games.

Thus, Agut, leading 3-2, arrested the flow of the German with his tactical moves of pinning down the rival to the baseline and mixed his back and forehands well.

"My opponent was serving well and I had to remain focused. It is always tough playing the first match of the season, and I happy I won today," said Agut after winning his first match of the season.