Almagro, other top seeds win in Malaysia

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Sept. 29 (UPI) -- Top-seeded Nicolas Almagro won a pair of tiebreakers Thursday in taking a second-round win at the Malaysian Open tennis tournament.

Almagro just got past Albert Ramos 7-6 (7-2), 7-6 (7-4). He landed only 48 percent of his first serves but managed to win 67 percent of the points on serve.

Six of the seven other seeded players joined Almagro in Friday's quarterfinals. Sixth-seeded Alex Bogomolov Jr., who lost a first-round match to Marcos Baghdatis, is the only seeded player out of contention.

No. 2-seeded Viktor Troicki defeated Denis Istomin 6-1, 6-4 Thursday. Troicki saved all three of the break points he face and finished with four breaks himself.

Janko Tipsarevic, the third seed, finished the second round with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Flavio Cipolla. He forced 17 break points on Cipolla, cashing in four.

Also Thursday, fifth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko defeated Lukasz Kubot 6-3, 7-6 (7-2) and No. 8-seeded Kei Nishikori outlasted Philipp Petzschner 6-3, 4-6, 7-5.

Almagro is to play Nishikori and Tipsarevic draws Davydenko in the top half of the draw's quarterfinals. Baghdatis goes against fourth-seeded Jurgen Melzer and Troicki meets No. 7-seeded Dmitry Tursunov in the lower half.