Gaudio to face Safin in Valencia quarter-finals

VALENCIA, Apr 13 (Reuters) Argentine second seed Gaston Gaudio will play Marat Safin in the quarter-finals of the Valencia Open after beating Florian Mayer of Germany 6-4 6-2 today.

Russian wild card Safin, who beat last year's winner Igor Andreev in the first round, brushed aside Serbian Boris Pashanski 6-2 6-2 in just 55 minutes to advance to his first quarter-final of the year.

Nicolas Almagro will meet sixth seeded Italian Filippo Volandri in one of the claycourt tournament's other quarter-finals.

The Spaniard, who beat former world number one Juan Carlos Ferrero in his opening match, cruised to an easy 6-2 6-1 victory over Germany's Bjoern Phau.

Volandri disposed of Tomas Zib of the Czech Republic 6-4 6-4 in the day's opening second round match.

In the other quarter-final matches, Guillermo Garcia-Lopez will face seventh seed Fernando Verdasco in an all-Spanish clash and Italy's Andreas Seppi will meet Frenchman Gilles Simon.

Reuters PDS BST2200