Arevalo/Rojer Escape Tsitsipas Brothers, Reach Monte-Carlo QFs

Third seeds Marcelo Arevalo and Jean-Julien Rojer survived an early scare Wednesday at the Rolex Monte-Carlo Masters. Top seeds Wesley Koolhof and Neal Skupski also avoided an upset in their clay-season opener.

The El Salvadoran-Dutch duo of Arevalo and Rojer saved seven of eight break points faced to oust Stefanos Tsitsipas and Petros Tsitsipas 6-2, 6-7(5), 10-5 in the second round of the ATP Masters 1000 event.

Two-time titlists this season (Delray Beach, Adelaide-2), Arevalo and Rojer will next meet Kevin Krawietz and Tim Puetz in the quarter-finals after the German pair cruised to a 6-4, 6-3 victory against Rohan Bopanna and Matthew Ebden.

Arevalo and Rojer were semi-finalists in Monaco last season two months before claiming their maiden Grand Slam trophy at Roland Garros, which helped them qualify for the 2022 Nitto ATP Finals.

Koolhof and Skupski were on the brink of defeat Wednesday, but the Dutch-British duo fended off four match points in the Match Tie-break to survive the challenge of Karen Khachanov and Andrey Rublev 6-7(5), 6-3, 14-12.

Seeking their first title of 2023, Koolhof and Skupski won 42 of 49 points off their first delivery to advance to the last eight, where they will clash against Fabrice Martin and Andreas Mies.

In first-round action, Juan Sebastian Cabal and Robert Farah downed Santiago Gonzalez and Edouard Roger-Vasselin 7-5, 6-7(2), 10-5. Wild cards Romain Arneodo and Sam Weissborn defeated Marcelo Melo and Alexander Zverev 6-2, 6-4.