Philipp Kohlschreiber has reached the quarter-finals of a master tournament in Indian Wells, California, for the first time in almost eight years.
One day after his surprise victory over Marin Cilic (Croatia), the 34-year-old from Augsburg, Germany, defeated the Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert 6-4,7-6 (7-1).
In the round of the last eight, Kohlschreiber will face an Argentinean: either top-10 player Juan Martin del Potro or his compatriot Leonardo Mayer. Kohlschreiber had been eliminated from his four quarter-finals in the high-cost, high-class Masters tournaments so far.
Against the world rankings-93. Herbert Kohlschreiber took advantage of the opportunity that had opened up after his victory over Cilic, who had taken second place. At the beginning of each set, he took the serve from the two-time double Grand Slam double winner and gave himself only one pelt when he served for the match at a score of 5:4. In the tiebreak, however, Kohlschreiber prevailed and turned his first match point into a victory after 1:29 hours.
Kohlschreiber has been the only German in the men’s field in the third round of the $7.972 million hard court tournament in the Californian desert. Previously, the Zverev brothers Alexander and Mischa had lost in the second round as well as Jan-Lennard Struff (Warstein) and Peter Gojowczyk (Munich) at the start.
In the women’s singles, former world number one Angelique Kerber (Kiel) will play against Russian Daria Kasatkina for the semi-finals on Thursday. Kerber had outclassed Caroline Garcia of France 6-1,6-1,6-1 in the round of sixteen, proving their strong form of starting the season in Australia in the USA.