Paire To Meet Good Friend In Marseille QFs

Eighth seed Benoit Paire will meet his good friend, top seed Stan Wawrinka, on Friday for a place in the semi-finals at the Open 13 Provence. Wawrinka leads Paire 6-1 in their FedEx ATP Head2Head series, including victory last month in Chennai. Paire hit 10 aces past fellow Frenchman Vincent Millot, a qualifier, in a 6-3, 1-6, 6-3 win over one hour and 36 minutes on Thursday.

Andrey Kuznetsov, who turns 25 on Monday, will hope to improve on his 0-5 record in ATP World Tour quarter-finals when he takes on four seed and 2011 finalist Marin Cilic. Kuznetsov moved into the last eight by beating wild card Quentin Halys 6-0, 6-4 in 56 minutes.

Nick Kyrgios, who is playing in his second tournament of the year, struck 17 aces past Teymuraz Gabashvili in a 6-4, 6-4 victory over 72 minutes. He now awaits the winner of third seed Richard Gasquet or Ernests Gulbis, who play during the evening session. Earlier this month, Gasquet won his 13th ATP World Tour title at Montpellier (d. Mathieu).

Second seed and 2013 runner-up Tomas Berdych plays wild card Alexander Zverev to close out play on day four.