PUNE: Finland’s sixth seed Emil Ruusuvuori knocked out defending champion Jiri Vesely in straight sets 6-3, 6-4 in the quarterfinals of the Tata Open Maharashtra at the Mhalunge-Balewadi stadium here on Friday.
Ruusuvuori, world No. 90, had ousted the last edition’s runner-up Egor Gerasimov of Belarus in the opening round of the $494,000 ATP 250 Series event.
Sweden’s Elias Ymer, coming in as a qualifier, extended his winning run to beat Italian eighth seed Stefano Travaglia 6-4, 7-6 (4). His win comes a day after his younger sibling Mikael, playing in the ATP event in Montpellier, France, stunned home favourite Gael Monfils. Elias will take on Portugal’s Joao Sousa, who put paid to the hopes of German fifth seed Daniel Altmaier 6-2, 6-3.
Earlier in the day, Poland’s Kamil Majchrzak, the 2014 Young Olympics gold medallist, upset second seed Italian Lorenzo Musetti 6-2, 6-7 (5), 6-4 to set up a semifinal with Ruusuvuori .
In the doubles, Vishnu Vardhan and Sriram Balaji bowed out with a 2-6, 4-6 loss to top seeds Luke Saville and John-Patrick Smith of Australia.
The home hopes now rest on second seeds Rohan Bopanna and Ramkumar Ramanathan, who will play the semifinals against Sadio Doumbia and Fabian Reboul of France on Saturday.
