Juan Martin Del Potro faces Philipp Kohlschreiber for a place in the Indian Wells quarter-finals later today.
Del Potro has thoroughly lived up to his billing as the floater no one wanted to face so far this week. The Argentine has been in sparkling form over the past month, winning the Delray Beach title and he's improving rapidly with every tournament. With the second quarter of the draw wide open after early exits for Robin Soderling and Andy Murray, the Argentine has a golden chance to reach the semi-finals.
Del Potro ended Ivan Ljubicic's hopes of defending his title with a 5-7, 6-4, 6-2 second round win before seeing off Aussie Open quarter-finalist Alexandr Dolgopolov 7-6, 6-3 on Monday to extend his winning streak to eight matches.
Kohlschreiber stunned fourth seed Soderling 7-6(8), 6-4 in the third round but the German did benefit from Soderling's movement being severely restricted by a foot injury. However to give him credit, Kohlschreiber did return extremely well and he staved off several set points in the first set tiebreak.
However, Kohlschreiber admitted afterwards that Del Potro is strong favourite going into this encounter. “Even if del Potro is not seeded, he is the favorite,” he said. “He is a Grand Slam champion and he's coming back, so he's maybe not at his best, but for sure he's playing really good tennis.”
Prediction: Del Potro in two
