David Ferrer narrowly avoided crashing out of the Shanghai Masters on Thursday and Andy Roddick will be looking to send the Spaniard packing in the quarter-finals.
Ferrer's 1-6, 7-5, 6-2 third round victory over Juan Carlos Ferrero ensured that he became the fifth man to qualify for this year's ATP World Tour Finals but it was far from convincing tennis from the third seed.
Ferrer was completely outplayed in the first set and found himself facing 3 match points at 4-5 in the second but turned the match on its head as Ferrero was unable to come to terms with missing his chances.
Things were a lot more straighforward for Roddick who eased past seventh seed Nicolas Almagro 6-3, 6-4, denying his opponent the chance to make up some ground on Tomas Berdych in the ATP Race. Roddick looked extremely impressive, firing 11 aces and dropping just eight points on serve.
"I made a bit of an adjustment [on my serve] in warm-up this morning," Roddick told the press. "I felt like I was not serving great for the first couple rounds. Even last week, I feel like I was having to break two, three times to win a set. I was going like in spots where I'd make three serves in a row, but then miss four or five. It's those gaps where you're hitting second serves where guys get a look. I cleaned that up a little bit today. I think that makes everything look a little bit better."
Roddick may be the lower ranked player but he's our pick to reach the last four. Ferrer leads 5-4 on the head-to-head and beat Roddick in straight sets in the Davis Cup quarter-finals but the American rebounded to top his rival 6-3, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3 in the US Open fourth round last month.
