Valencia, Spain (SportsNetwork.com) - Top seed and defending champion David Ferrer was an easy second-round winner, while fourth-seeded American John Isner was shown the door at the $2 million Valencia Open.
The Spanish crowd favorite and French Open runner-up Ferrer leveled Frenchman Julien Benneteau 6-2, 6-1 on the indoor hardcourts at the City of Arts and Sciences.
The 32-year-old Ferrer, who was last week's runner-up in Stockholm, beat Ukrainian Alexandr Dolgopolov in last year's Valencia finale, also titled here in 2010, and was the runner-up here back in 2005.
The 6-foot-9 Isner, meanwhile, succumbed to France's Jeremy Chardy 7-6 (9-7), 6-3 on Day 4.
Third-seeded Spaniard Nicolas Almagro topped Polish wild card Michal Przysiezny 6-4, 7-5, while fifth-seeded Pole Jerzy Janowicz handled Portuguese qualifier Joao Sousa 6-2, 7-5. Almagro titled here back-to-back in 2006 and 2007 and was the Valencia runner-up in 2008.
Also in the second round, Finn Jarkko Nieminen whipped Colombian qualifier Alejandro Falla 6-2, 6-3 and Russian Mikhail Youzhny, the 2009 Valencia runner-up, grounded German Philipp Kohlschreiber 6-4, 6-3.
Friday's quarterfinals will pit Ferrer against the 6-foot-8 Janowicz; Almagro versus seventh-seeded Italian Fabio Fognini; Chardy against Russian Dmitry Tursunov; and Nieminen versus Youzhny.
The 2013 Valencia winner will collect $490,000.
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