Montpellier, France – World No. 10 Richard Gasquet got past fellow countryman Gael Monfils, while second seed Janko Tipsarevic lost to French crowd favorite Michael Llodra in Thursday's second-round action at the Open Sud de France tennis event.
The third-seeded Gasquet outlasted the former top-10 star Monfils 6-3, 2-6, 6-3.
Gasquet captured this event in Lyon back in 2006, while Monfils was last year's Montpellier runner-up to Czech Tomas Berdych, titled here in 2010, and was also the runner-up in 2005.
Up next for Gasquet will be fellow Frenchman Julien Benneteau, who was a runner-up at this tournament in Lyon in 2008.
The left-handed Llodra took out the Serbian star Tipsarevic 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) on the indoor hardcourts at Montpellier's Park & Suites Arena. Llodra was a runner-up at this event in 2009 in Lyon.
Meanwhile, fourth-seeded Frenchman Gilles Simon avoided an upset by handling Spanish qualifier Arnau Brugues-Davi 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 and a sixth-seeded Benneteau handled Romania's Victor Hanescu 6-4, 6-4. Simon will battle eighth- seeded rising fellow Frenchman Benoit Paire in Friday's quarterfinals.
Also on Day 3, Czech Jan Hajek bounced seventh-seeded Serb Viktor Troicki 6-0, 4-2, retired; and Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky overcame Japan's Tatsuma Ito 6-7 (4-7), 6-4, 7-6 (7-3). Troicki quit with a hamstring injury against Hajek, whose quarterfinal opponent will be Llodra, while Stakhovsky will face Finnish veteran Jarkko Nieminen in the round of eight.
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