Australia’s Marinko Matosevic missed out on a clash with world No.1 Novak Djokovic but Samantha Stosur continued to roll on at the Indian Wells Masters on Tuesday.
Matosevic lost the first set in a tiebreak to Sam Querrey before fighting back to win a second set tiebreak.
But it was not enough as Querrey triumphed over the 27-year-old 7-6 (7-5) 6-7 (7-9) 7-5 to set up a fourth-round showdown with Djokovic.
Stosur meanwhile belied her poor record when having lost a first set to claim a win over Germany’s Mona Barthel 4-6 6-2 6-3.
Things only get tougher though for the world No.9 when she takes on Angelique Kerber, the fourth seed, in the quarter-finals.
Kerber defeated Spanish qualifier Garbine Muguruza 6-4 7-5 in her fourth round match.
All of the top 10 women’s seeds were among the 16 players fighting for quarter-final berths, led by top seed and defending champion Victoria Azarenka and second-seeded Russian Maria Sharapova.
Sharapova started slow but came on strong in a 7-5 6-0 victory over 87th-ranked Spaniard Lara Arruabarrena-Vecino.
She’ll play Sara Errani who advanced with a 6-3 6-2 victory over ninth-seeded Marion Bartoli.
Sharapova, who beat Errani at last year’s French Open decider, said she expected a close tussle.
“I think one of her biggest keys is her consistency and her ability to make her opponent play,” Sharapova said of Errani. “She doesn’t make many mistakes. You’ve really got to win the match out there.”
Top-seeded Azarenka also advanced, despite a sore ankle, beating Urszula Radwanska 6-3 6-1.
In the men’s Djokovic trailed 4-1 in the opening set but he survived his rocky start to beat Grigor Dimitrov 7-6 (7-4) 6-1 to reach the fourth round.
A welter of errors from Djokovic’s 21-year-old Bulgarian opponent was the only opportunity the Serbian star needed and he battled back to win in 67 minutes.
Djokovic improved his win-loss record to 15-0 in 2013 and 20-0 since October 31 — when he lost to Querrey in the Paris Masters.
Eighth-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and 17th-seeded Canadian Milos Raonic set up a rematch of their record-breaking London Olympics clash, when Tsonga out-lasted Raonic 6-3 3-6 25-23 in the second round.
The 48-game final set was the longest single set in Olympic history, a record that takes into account all men’s and women’s matches in both singles and doubles.
Tsonga held off American Mardy Fish 7-6 (7-4) 7-6 (7-0) while Raonic rallied for a 3-6 6-4 6-3 victory over Croatian Marin Cilic.
In all, 12 men’s seeds were in third-round action on Tuesday, including world No.3 Andy Murray.
Murray, playing his first tournament since losing to Djokovic in the Australian Open final in January, was due to take on Taiwan’s Lu Yen-Hsun.
Lu stunned Murray in the first round at the 2008 Beijing Olympics — a disappointment Murray made up for with his gold medal performance before adoring British fans at the London Games last year.