Stockholm Open: Grigor Dimitrov through to the last eight in Sweden

Grigor Dimitrov made a successful start to his Stockholm Open title defence on Wednesday as he overcame Russia's Teymuraz Gabashvili in straight sets

The Bulgarian second seed took just under two hours to see off his opponent 7-5 7-6 (7-4) and book his spot in the quarter-finals.

Also through to the last eight after triumphing in second-round ties on Wednesday are Spanish seventh seed Fernando Verdasco and Australia's Bernard Tomic, who will face each other for a place in the semi-finals.

Verdasco beat Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-3 6-4, while Tomic sprung a surprise by defeating the third seed, Kevin Anderson of South Africa, 7-6 (7-4) 6-4.

Czech top seed Tomas Berdych plays his second-round match on Thursday against Germany's Dustin Brown, a 6-4 7-6 (7-3) victor over home favourite Christian Lindell.

Wednesday's other first-round action saw Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert triumph 7-6 (7-3) 6-4 against Pablo Carreno-Busta of Spain and American Jack Sock get past Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev 6-1 4-6 6-0.

Meanwhile, in the doubles Great Britain's Jamie Murray made safe progress with Australian John Peers into round two with a 6-2 6-3 win over Swede Johan Brunstrom and American Nicholas Munroe.