Top-seeded Robin Soderling breezed past Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France 6-0, 6-1 Thursday to reach the quarterfinals of the Malaysian Open.
The fifth-ranked Swede dominated the match with his blistering serves and accurate shot making to set up a meeting with Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev. Golubev overcame South Africa's Kevin Anderson 6-4, 7-6 (4).
Third-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic also advanced by beating Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin 6-4, 6-3, and No. 5 David Ferrer of Spain ousted Yuki Bhambri of India 6-2, 6-2.
Soderling only dropped eight points in the first set, which lasted a mere 22 minutes. Roger-Vasselin played more aggressively in the second set and finally held serve to make it 1-0. However, it was all Soderling from there and the Swede closed out the victory in 62 minutes.
''To be honest it was not as easy as it looked as this is my first match here while Edouard already had some game time,'' said Soderling, who had a bye in the first round. ''This may be one of the smaller tournaments on the ATP but the level of competition is very high. I anticipate a tough workout in the quarterfinals as Andrey is more mobile and hits the ball really hard and flat.''
