A dominant Robin Soderling of Sweden swept aside Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-2, 6-3 in just over one hour yesterday, making him the man to beat at the Valencia Open
A dominant Robin Soderling of Sweden swept aside Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-2, 6-3 in just over one hour yesterday, making him the man to beat at the Valencia Open.
With top seed Briton Andy Murray and Fernando Verdasco both knocked out in surprise defeats it means Soderling, in the form of his life, is favourite to notch up another tournament win.
This is the 14th time this season that the Swede has reached a quarter-final and he took 61 minutes to defeat 59th ranked Gimeno-Traver, who had no response to the Soderling's power and was well beaten.
Gimeno-Traver produced an unexpected win over Nicolas Almagro in the last round but with the scores at 1-1 in the first set he went on to be broken twice by the World No 5 and lost the first set 6-2.
Soderling was relentless in the second and Gimeno-Traver, always on the back foot, lost his serve twice again.
Number four seed David Ferrer is also looking strong after beating Russian qualifier Teymuraz Gabashvili 6-4, 6-1.
