Almagro On A Mission

Confidence matters on the tennis court, and World No. 72 Nicolas Almagro is well on his way to recapturing it at the Argentina Open in Buenos Aires.

The Spaniard, once ranked No.9 in the Emirates ATP Rankings, continued his quest for a first ATP World Tour title in four years by advancing to the quarter-finals with a hard-fought 6-3, 4-6, 6-4 win over home hope Federico Delbonis.

Almagro is coming off two injury-marred seasons after averaging over 45 wins per year between 2010 and 2013, but he is back in familiar territory in South America. The 2011 champion, who netted 16 of his 18 match wins on clay last season, improved to 27-9 in Buenos Aires. It took two hours and 13 minutes for Almagro to earn his third match win of the season, during which he held 14 break points (3/14).

In the quarter-finals, he will face either third seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga or Argentine Leonardo Mayer.

Rising star Dominic Thiem was a point away from being upset by qualifier Gastao Elias before flipping the script and prevailing 3-6, 7-6(7), 6-3.

The Austrian made a slow start, dropping both break points faced in the opening set against an opponent who was playing in his first tour-level event of the year. The fifth-seeded Thiem got up to speed in the second set, but Elias held strong, turning aside five break points and holding a match point at 7/6 in the tie-break. It was then that the youngest player in the Top 20 showed his quality, reeling off the next three points to even the match and eventually winning in two hours and nine minutes.

Thiem, who captured all three of his ATP World Tour titles on clay, will face Dusan Lajovic, after the Serb saved a match point in the tiebreak to upset American No. 4 seed John Isner. Lajovic had lost the only prior FedEx ATP Head2Head encounter between the two but emerged a narrow 7-6(10), 4-6, 7-6(6) victor on Wednesday. The 25-year-old World No. 79 did not have a break point throughout the two-hour, 20-minute clash but managed to save five of the six break points he faced.