Somdev scores stunning win on clay

Clay is supposed to the weakest surface for Somdev Devvarman - but the Indian No. 1 player continued his breakthrough season on the ATP tour with a remarkable 7-6 (8-6), 2-6, 7-6 (10-8) win over world no. 26 Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and advance to the quarter-finals of the Serbia Open in Belgrade.

Devvarman broke the Spaniard's serve to go up 2-1 in the final set but then Garcia-Lopez won three games in a row to set up what seemed like a formidable 4-2 lead in the decider. but Devvarman fought back to take the set into a tie-break where he once again found himself coming back from 2-4 down to win the marathon 10-8 in the tie-breaker.

The Indian saved 10 of 16 breakpoints on his serve while coverting 4 out of 5 on his opponent's.

The match lasted 3 hours and 13 minutes and Devvarman will now play either local favourite Janko Tipsarevic, who he beat in the Davis Cup in Serbia just last month, or Mischa Zverev.

The win assures Devvarman 45 ranking points and will see him move to a new career-high of no. 67 in next week's rankings.

World no. 2 and the hottest player in tennis Novak Djokovic is also competing in this tournament and Devvarman could meet the Serb, who is 25-0 this year, in the semi-finals of this ATP 250 event.

Sania Mirza reaches quarter-finals of the Family Circle Cup

India's top ranked woman player Sania Mirza won her 5th match in Charleston to reach the quarter-finals of the Family Circle Cup clay court event.

Mirza, who came through the qualifying draw, beat Germany's Sabine Lisicki on Thursday 6-4, 6-4. In the quarter-finals she will play No.11 seed Peng Shuai, who missed out on four match points at 5-4 in the second set but rebounded in the third for a 63 57 62 win over No.7 seed Nadia Petrova.

Sania has struggled on clay in the previous years. She will receive 132 WTA ranking points for her efforts this week which will see her rise to around #72 in the rankings from he current rank of #90. Sania had begun the year at No. 160 in the WTA rankings and is not defending any points until the French Open since she was injured at this time last year.

Meanwhile at the US Clay Court Championships in Houston, India's Somdev Devvarman was beaten by Sapnish clay court specialist Guillermo Garcia Lopez, the #3 seed. Garcia-Lopez won 6-4, 6-1 in the second round encounter.