Belgian second seed David Goffin and French hopes Gilles Simon and Lucas Pouille were among winners on Thursday in Metz.
2014 edition’s champion David Goffin defeated Germany’s Jan-Lennard Struff 6-4 6-2 losing just two points on his serve and facing no break points in the match. In the quarterfinals, he will face French eight seed Nicolas Mahut, who beat Ukraine’s Illya Marchenko 6-3 6-4 in 1 hour and 21 minutes. Mahut, who is playing the Moselle Open for the 11th straight year, is yet to be broken this week, having saved all the four break points faced.
Third seed Lucas Pouille won a nice match against the fellow Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert with the score of 6-4 6-7(6) 6-4 in 1 hour and 55 minutes. The 25 year-old Herbert served 17 aces and saved a match point in the second set, but could not convert any of his three break points. Pouille, who played a very solid match, will face Julien Benneteau tomorrow.
Another French seed Gilles Simon came back from a set down to knock out Spain’s Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-7(5) 6-3 6-4 in 2 hours and 39 minutes. Simon converted just 5 of his 14 break points in the match, but won the 81% of service points in the third set. He will meet Tunisia’s Malek Jaziri, who ousted French qualifier Vincent Millot 4-6 6-3 6-4. Jaziri, who won the Istanbul challenger last week, is on a seven matches winning streak and very close to his best ranking (53; 55 this week).
In doubles, one semifinal was reached by Colin Fleming and Scott Lipsky, who defeated Marcus Daniell and Marcelo Demoliner 5-7 7-6(3) 13-11 saving two match points and by Mate Pavic and Michael Venus, who beat Nicholas Monroe and Artem Sitak 6-2 7-6(5). Julio Peralta and Horacio Zeballos, 4-6 6-3 10-5 over Aisam Qureshi and Robert Lindstedt and Oliver Marach and Fabrice Martin, 6-1 6-3 over Gero Kretschmer and Jan-Lennard Struff will face off in the other semi.
