Top seed comfortably through against promising teenager
Andy Roddick has come through his second-round match at the San Jose Open against Japanese teenager Kei Nishikori, the top seed taking a straight sets 6-2 6-4 victory.
The American made full use of both his huge serve and solid play at the net to see off the 18-year-old, Nishikori having won his first career title in Delay Beach last week.
After Roddick took the first set, the two traded early breaks in the second. But Nishikori then committed three unforced errors in a row to lose the second and hand Roddick victory
Roddick later said that he needed to step up a level in order to beat his opponent and labelled the match as one of the best he had played in over the past six months.
"I was tight about this match," he said.
"I watched him yesterday and he was crushing the ball. So I was going to try to use everything to try to get a win out there. I was very impressed with him.
"I think he's going to be a player."
Meanwhile, the beaten Nishikori said: "I'm not feeling good. I made too many easy mistakes. I had so many chances. I didn't play well."
Roddick will face another American, Mardy Fish, in the quarter-finals after he beat Germany's Denis Gremelmayr 6-7 6-3 6-3.
Haas out
In other second round matches, John Isner caused an upset against third seed Tommy Haas, the 6ft 9ins American fending off three match points before advancing 4-6 7-6 6-3.
Isner was down 6-3 in a second set tie-break but then responded with two huge serves before an attempted forehand passing shot from Haas fell long.
The German's opponent then coolly snapped up the next two points to take the set.
"He hit a really good serve that kind of jammed me and I tried to get away from it and hit a backhand deep and forced a mistake and that was big," said Isner of the third match point.
"From there, I had nothing to lose because I was already down three match points and I played pretty loose and some of my best tennis."
Isner needed just a single break to take the third set, serving out with two aces and two service winners to take the contest.
He will now face Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in the quarter-finals, with second seed James Blake also through to the last eight thanks to a 6-3 6-4 victory over Jesse Levine.
Taiwan's Lu Yen-hsun beat American Wayne Odesnik 6-4 6-4 and will now play fourth seed Radek Stepanek.