ROTTERDAM, Netherlands – Top-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia and defending champion Martin Klizan of Slovakia both lost in the quarterfinals of the World Tennis Tournament on Friday.
Cilic was beaten 7-6 (8), 7-6 (5) by sixth-seeded Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who beat the former U.S. Open champion for only the second time in seven meetings. Tsonga had 12 aces compared to nine for Cilic and neither dropped their serve.
Klizan was soundly beaten 6-3, 6-3 in one hour by fourth-seeded Czech Tomas Berdych, who took his three break point chances and did not concede one on his serve. Berdych has now won all of their four matches.
Tsonga and Berdych meet in the semifinals Saturday, with Berdych holding an 8-3 lead overall.
In Friday's later quarterfinals, second-seeded Dominic Thiem of Austria faced unseeded qualifier Pierre-Hugues Herbert of France and No. 3 David Goffin of Belgium took on No. 5 Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria.
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