Roberto Bautista Agut reached his second straight quarterfinal and third of the season Thursday with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 defeat of Jiri Vesely at the Rotterdam World Tennis event. The sixth seed, who won the Sofia title last week after also triumphing in Auckland in January, claimed his sixth consecutive victory. The Spaniard had to recover as his Czech opponent seized the momentum by winning the opening set, only to find the tables turning as Bautista Agut hit his stride. Bautista Agut advanced on his third match point when he fired an untouchable return at the feet of Vesely. The world No. 17 will next play the winner from Cypriot crowd-pleaser Marcos Baghdatis and Slovak Martin Klizan. French qualifier Nicolas Mahut defeated compatriot Jeremy Chardy 7-5, 6-2 to advance. The 34-year-old, who has played four matches this week at the Ahoy stadium, will be competing in his second quarterfinal of the season after advancing into the top eight last month in Sydney, where he lost to Serb Viktor Troicki. A repeat of that match will be played Friday after eighth seed Troicki put out South Korea's Hyeon Chung 7-6 (7-5), 6-2. Bencic beats Beck In St. Petersburg, top-seed Belinda Bencic overcame serving issues to defeat Annika Beck of Germany 7-6 (3), 6-3 at the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy Thursday. Bencic was broken four times in a chaotic first set in which she recorded six double faults, including one on break point that allowed Beck to serve for the set at 6-5. However, the Swiss recovered to break Beck and dominate both the resulting tiebreak and second set. Bencic, who had a first-round bye, next plays a quarterfinal against either fifth-seeded Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia or Carina Witthoeft of Germany. Earlier, Hungary's Timea Babos defeated ninth-seeded Monica Niculescu of Romania 4-6, 6-1, 6-3 in her second-round match. Venus in quarterfinals Venus Williams beat Poland's Urszula Radwanska 6-4, 6-2 to set up a Taiwan Open quarterfinal against Anastasija Sevastova, despite not hitting top form Thursday. The seven-time Grand Slam winner, 35, sent down two double faults and only landed 48 percent of her first serves in the first set but reached her debut quarter-final of 2016. Local hope Hsieh Su-wei beat Mandy Minella 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 to join Williams in the last eight alongside fellow seed Misaki Doi of Japan, who ousted Magda Linette 6-2, 6-3. Nishikori off to fine start Top-seeded Kei Nishikori opened his bid for a fourth straight Memphis Open title with a 6-2, 7-5 victory over American Ryan Harrison Wednesday night. Nishikori, the world's seventh-ranked player, will face Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin, who upset fifth-seeded Denis Kudla 6-1, 7-5 earlier Wednesday. In other second-round matches, fourth-seeded Sam Querrey of the United States beat Henri Laaksonen of Switzerland 6-3, 6-4, and Japan's Yoshihito Nishioka topped Ukraine's Illya Marchenko 6-1, 6-3. Thiem, Almagro in last 8 Fifth-seeded Dominic Thiem of Austria reached his second quarterfinals of the young season when he defeated qualifier Gastao Elias of Portugal 3-6, 7-6 (7), 6-3 in the Argentina Open Wednesday. In another second-round match in the clay-court tournament, 2011 champion Nicolas Almagro of Spain beat Federico Delbonis 6-3, 4-6, 6-4, his third win over the local hope after 2012 and ‘13. Top-seeded Rafael Nadal, the defending champion, faces Juan Monaco of Argentina Thursday in the second round. Vinci downs Wickmayer Roberta Vinci secured her place in the quarterfinals of the St. Petersburg Ladies Trophy by beating Belgium's Yanina Wickmayer 6-2, 7-6 (2) Wednesday. Ana Ivanovic powered into the quarterfinals when her Russian opponent Margarita Gasparyan crumbled, winning 7-5, 6-2. The seventh-seeded Kristina Mladenovic of France lost in the first round after a two-hour fight with Laura Siegemund of Germany 1-6, 7-5, 6-1. Siegemund faces promising young Russian Darya Kasatkina in the second round after she beat Belgian Kirsten Flipkens 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. Also, former Australian Open finalist Dominika Cibulkova of Slovakia made short work of Evgenia Rodina of Russia in the first round, 6-3, 6-0.
