Defending champion Aljaz Bedene is now the only seed still standing in the Irving Challenger, though the fourth seed was given a massive scare by young American Frances Tiafoe, eventually prevailing 7-6, 3-6, 7-6.
The Briton was forced to go to three sets for the second straight match (Bedene defeated Dmitry Tursunov in three sets in the second round). The British world no. 51 was matched by Tiafoe in the first, as they traded breaks before the higher-ranked player won the tiebreak 7-5. Far from being deterred, Tiafoe took heart from his strong performance, breaking early in the second, and survived a Bedene recovery to level the score at a set apiece. Both men struggled to put their first serves in play, with neither able to average above 50% over the course of the match. It ultimately came down to the fact that Bedene proved marginally better on second serve, allowing the 2015 winner to edge another tiebreak to reach the semi-finals.
His opponent will be another American teen in Jared Donaldson. The right-hander produced a dominant display to defeat fellow young gun Andrey Rublev 6-4, 6-1. Donaldson broke at five-four in the first set, and served out for the lead. Donaldson missed a chance to break in the game of the second set. It would turn out to be the only game that Rublev would win in the second, as Donaldson raced through the next six games without reply. If Donaldson could continue his fine form this week, he could push much closer to the Top 100 with a maximum of 125 points on offer for the winner this week.
Marcel Granollers, a former Top 20 star, dismissed third seed Lukas Rosol in straight sets, 6-4, 6-2. In a match littered with unforced errors from the thirty-year old Czech, Granollers managed to maintain respectable numbers from his side of the court to reach the semi-finals.
His opponent will be either Ivan Dodig, the big-serving Croatian, or Diego Schwartzman, an Argentinian who has proven more at home on clay than on hard-courts.
