CASABLANCA, Morocco (AP)—Second-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain reached his first quarterfinals of the year when he beat countryman Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-2 in the Grand Prix Hassan II on Wednesday.
No. 4-seeded Lukasz Kubot of Poland, No. 8 Florent Serra of France and Potito Starace of Italy joined Garcia-Lopez in the last eight.
Kubot beat Arnaud Clement of France 6-4, 6-1, Serra rallied past Stephane Robert 2-6, 6-1, 6-3 in an all-French matchup, and Starace routed Oscar Hernandez of Spain 6-2, 6-1 to appear in his first quarterfinals since January.
Fresh after a first-round bye, Garcia-Lopez put pressure on Granollers’ serve, winning more than half of his return points in their first meeting.
He led 3-0 and held serve to clinch the opening set, then won five straight games in the second to post his first win in Casablanca in three attempts.
Garcia-Lopez, who went four rounds at the Indian Wells Masters last month, will next meet last year’s runner-up Serra.
Serra struggled with his serve in the opening set, double-faulting twice and landing only 50 percent of his first serves. But Robert, a finalist at the South African Open, could not break Serra in the two following sets.
Kubot, a finalist at the Brazil Open, got the better of French veteran Clement, who led 3-1 only to lose serve seven times in a row.
Meanwhile, Starace took Hernandez’s serve twice in each set without allowing any break chance to Hernandez.
The 73rd-ranked Starace improved his record against Hernandez to 3-0 and will next play Kubot.