Ferrero among those advancing at Mercedes

STUTTGART, Germany, July 14 (UPI) -- Juan Carlos Ferrero and Lukasz Kubot posted second-round wins Thursday, knocking the last seeded players out of the Mercedes Cup tennis tournament in Germany.

Ferrero ousted third-seeded Mikhail Youzhny with a 6-7 (6-8), 6-3, 6-2 victory and Kubot eliminated fourth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 4-6, 6-4, 6-3 to collect berths in Friday's quarterfinals.

Ferrero lost his serve just twice -- the second time when he was up 5-1 in the third set -- and closed the match with his sixth break of the day.

Kubot's second-round match was pushed to Thursday because of rain. Garcia-Lopez dropped only eight points on serve in the first set but Kubot got a pair of breaks in each the second and third sets to advance.

He draws Santiago Giraldo in the quarterfinals. Giraldo defeated Jeremy Chardy 1-6, 7-5, 6-4, losing his serve three times in the first set but only once thereafter.

A pair of qualifiers are through to the quarterfinals as Pavol Cervenak topped Victor Hanescu 6-3, 7-6 (8-6) and Federico del Bonis got by Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-4, 6-3.

Also Thursday, Marcel Granollers beat Benoit Paire 6-4, 7-5 and wild-card entrant Cedrik-Marcel Stebe battled for nearly 2 1/2 hours before winning 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 over Fabio Fognini.

Cervenak will go against del Bonis and Ferrero meets Granollers in the quarterfinals. Stebe is to play Pablo Andujar in his Friday match.