Nadal, Roddick to meet in Dubai

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, March 5 (UPI) -- World No. 2 Rafael Nadal and sixth-ranked Andy Roddick collected victories and will meet in the quarterfinals of the $1.4 million Dubai Tennis Championships.

Nadal pasted Mikhail Ledovskikh, 6-4, 6-0, and Roddick stopped Paul-Henri Mathieu, 6-3, 6-4, to set up Thursday's marquee quarterfinal match. Nadal owns a 2-1 career edge over Roddick but they've played only once since 2004. Last year, Nadal was a straight-set winner over Roddick in a Master Series tournament in California.

No. 3-seeded Novak Djokovic was a straight-set winner over Fabrice Santoro, 6-3, 7-6 (7-3), while fourth-seeded David Ferrer and fifth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko also won Wednesday. Ferrer dropped Olivier Rochus, 3-6, 7-5, 6-1, and Davydenko stopped Jan Hernych, 6-1, 6-4.

But two seeded players were eliminated with Igor Andreev taking out No. 7 Richard Gasquet, 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5), and Feliciano Lopez beating eighth-seeded Tomas Berdych, 6-2, 7-5.

Also, 11th-seeded Andy Murray advanced with a 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-5) win over Fernando Verdasco.

In addition to the Nadal-Roddick match, Thursday's card has Djokovic playing Andreev, Ferrer going against Lopez and Davydenko meeting Murray.

The 2008 Dubai champion will take home $300,000.