American Ginepri scraps into Los Angeles quarter-finals

LOS ANGELES, July 28 (Reuters) American Robby Ginepri booked his place in the Los Angeles Open quarter-finals with a 7-6 3-6 6-4 win over Denmark's Kenneth Carlsen.

The fourth seed, who has struggled for much of the season, outlasted the Danish left-hander in a scrappy finish to claim only his 11th victory in 28 matches in 2006 yesterday.

''I hung in there against Kenneth,'' the 23-year-old told reporters. ''He has a great serve.'' Ginepri, who reached the semi-finals in Indianapolis last week before losing to Andy Roddick, took the first set on a tie-break but was outplayed by Carlsen in the second after being broken in the fourth game.

Ginepri appeared to hold the upper hand in the deciding set after breaking the Dane's serve for a second time to lead 4-1.

But both players then struggled to hold serve in a wildly fluctuating finish, the American being broken in the seventh and ninth games and the Dane in the eighth and 10th.

''Any time you can break after you just got broken, it's tough to do,'' said Ginepri, who will meet Slovakian Dominik Hrbaty in the quarter-finals. ''I hung in there today.'' The Georgia resident hopes he has put his erratic early-season play behind him.

FIGHTING DEMONS ''Year after year, I get a few good results and then drop off a lot,'' Ginepri added. ''I was putting pressure on myself at the start of the year, fighting demons inside me.

''I've tried everything to sort it out, even a little hypnosis.

But I did some soul searching the last couple of weeks and I feel I'm on the right track.'' In yesterday's opening match, seventh-seeded Hrbaty beat Germany's Lars Burgsmueller 7-5 6-4.

The Slovakian broke his opponent's serve five times to reach his first ATP Tour quarter-final since advancing into the last four in Adelaide in January.

Eighth seed Dmitry Tursunov charged into his fifth quarter-final of the year, beating 18-year-old Californian Sam Querrey 7-5 6-4 in searing 114 degree heat at the Los Angeles Tennis Center.

The 23-year-old Russian, who climbed to a career-high 31st in the rankings last month, fired down 12 aces to set up a likely meeting with top seed Roddick in the last eight.

World number 10 Roddick was scheduled to face fellow American Scott Oudesma in Thursday's final match.

REUTERS PM KN0924