Hrbaty wins; Massu falls in Casablanca
Casablanca, Morocco - Former runner-up Dominik Hrbaty posted a second-round win on Thursday, while last year’s finalist Nicolas Massu was sent packing at the $400,000 Grand Prix Hassan II tennis event.The top-seeded Hrbaty, a finalist here three years ago, snuck past Algerian wild card Slimane Saoudi 7-5, 7-6 (7-2), while a seventh-seeded Massu succumbed to Spaniard Albert Montanes 6-1, 2-1 on the red clay at Complexe Sportif al Amal. The Chilean Massu, who lost to Italian Daniele Bracciali in last year’s finale here, retired on Day 4 due to
an abdominal injury.In other second-round play, second-seeded Argentine Jose Acasuso erased Serbian Janko Tipsarevic 6-4, 6-4 and eighth-seeded Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu came back to beat his qualifier countryman Edouard Roger-Vasselin 4-6, 6-3, 6-3.Friday’s quarterfinals will pit the Slovakian Hrbaty against Montanes, Acasuso versus Mathieu, third-seeded Julien Benneteau against his fifth-seeded fellow Frenchman Marc Gicquel and Spaniard Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo versus Frenchman Sebastien Grosjean, the 2000 Casablanca runner-up.© 2007 The Sports Network