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Comfortable turf Henman keeps up strong play at Swiss Indoors
BASEL, Switzerland (AP) -- Britain's Tim Henman continued his love affair with the $1 million Swiss Indoors tournament Thursday, reaching the quarterfinals with an easy victory over Andrea Gaudenzi. The second seed dropped only three games as he polished off the Italian 6-2, 6-1. He will now face Michel Kratochvil of Switzerland in the quarterfinals. Kratochvil fought hard for his victory over fifth-seeded Arnaud Clement of France, saving four match points before coming through in the final set tiebreak to win 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (6). Henman is now the highest remaining seed following Wednesday's first round defeat of world No. 1 Gustavo Kuerten and the withdrawal of Andre Agassi of the United States before the start of the tournament. The 27-year-old was champion in Basel in 1998 and reached the final the following year before losing to Agassi. Last year he made it to the semifinals. American teen-ager Andy Roddick also made it through to the quarterfinals Thursday, beating Nenad Zimonjic of Yugoslavia 6-4, 7-6 (4). The 19-year-old sixth seed will now play the home favorite, Roger Federer, seeded fourth, who was last year's losing finalist. It will be the first meeting between the two young players. Federer, 20, a Basel native who made the finals of the tournament last year before losing to Thomas Enqvist, put out Xavier Malisse of Belgium 6-3, 6-4 in the evening's show match Thursday. Seventh-seeded Spaniard Carlos Moya put out French qualifier Nicolas Thomann in straight sets to line up a match against Nikolay Davydenko of Russia. Davydenko beat Swiss wild card entry Marc Rosset, whose defeat means he will be hard-pressed to finish the season in the world top 100. But Rosset vowed to carry on fighting. "Tennis is my reason for living. I simply have to win more matches," he said. Switzerland will have at least two players in the quarterfinals of the tournament, however, as qualifier George Bastl beat Bohdan Ulihrach of the Czech Republic, winning two tiebreaks to go through 7-6 (3), 7-6 (1). He will now play France's Julien Boutter. A day after putting out the top seed Kuerten in straight sets, Boutter had a harder match against Andrei Pavel of Romania, losing the first set but coming through to win comfortably 4-6, 6-4, 6-0.
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