Top seed Carlos Alcaraz easily reached the quarter-finals of the Barcelona Open with a straight-set win over Laslo Djere.
The world number two from Spain, who won the Monte Carlo Masters last week, beat Serbia’s unseeded Djere 6-2, 6-4. Alcaraz started strong, winning the first five games and hitting eight winners without reply in the first set.
In the second set, he briefly fell behind 4-2 but bounced back to win the last four games and take the match.
“After I went 4-2 down, I started playing closer to my real level,” said Alcaraz. “I’m happy I could improve and show my best tennis. I want to keep going like this.”
Alcaraz, 21, will face fifth seed Alex de Minaur next. The Australian beat Britain’s Jacob Fearnley 6-1, 6-2. Fearnley had earned his first ATP clay-court win earlier this week.
In other matches, Russian fourth seed Andrey Rublev was upset by Spain’s Alejandro Davidovich Fokina, 7-5, 6-4. Davidovich Fokina will now play fellow unseeded player Karen Khachanov, who defeated Jaume Munar by the same score.