LONDON, 17 June 2004 — British No. 2 Greg Rusedski believes he is on course to hit his best form at Wimbledon as he continued to defend his title here at the Nottingham Open yesterday.

Rusedski booked a quarterfinal clash with former Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson after defeating American world No. 30 Vince Spadea 7-6 (7-3), 4-6, 6-1.

Sweden’s Johansson overcame Olivier Rochus of Belgium 6-4, 7-6 (7-5) to reach the last eight.

The No. 1 seed Paradorn Srichaphan of Thailand also lost the first set of his encounter with veteran South African Wayne Ferreira but the world No. 14 went on to prevail 4-6, 6-3, 7-5.

Paradorn will now meet seventh seed Hicham Arazi of Morocco after the world No. 35 defeated American Jan-Michael Gambill 7-6 (7-3), 6-3.

Rusedski has now won four out of 10 matches since he was cleared of any wrongdoing following a positive drugs test for the banned steroid nandrolone last year.

But it was the first time Rusedski has won two matches in a row on the ATP Tour since he won this event last year.

Despite falling in the rankings to 110 in the world Rusedski has been granted a wild card for the Wimbledon Championships which begin in London next Monday.

And the Canadian-born Briton said his two three-set matches here had been great preparation for the world’s No. 1 grass tournament.

“When I’m struggling with my game I always seem to come here and things start to turn around for me,” the 30-year-old said.

Fellow Britons Arvind Parmar and Alex Bogdanovic both failed to make the quarterfinals.

Parmar was defeated 6-4, 7-5 by big-serving Romanian Victor Hanescu while Bogdanovic saved several match points before also losing 6-2, 7-5 to Taylor Dent.

Hanescu and Dent will now battle it out for a place in the semifinals. Robin Soderling upset his fellow Swede and third seed Jonas Bjorkman 6-3, 6-4 and will meet the winner of the contest between Briton Jonathan Marray and Flavio Saretta of Brazil.

Top Seeds Petrova and Schnyder Ousted at Ordina

In Amsterdam, top seed Nadia Petrova and second seed Patty Schnyder were knocked out of the Ordina Open in their first matches at the grasscourt event by unseeded players yesterday.

Jelena Jankovic of Serbia and Montenegro ousted world No. 12 Petrova 6-4, 6-3 and Spaniard Anabel Medina Garrigues beat Switzerland’s Schnyder 6-2, 6-4.

Jankovic will meet eighth seed Lina Krasnoroutskaya in the quarterfinals after the Russian beat Denisa Chladkova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 6-4.

The 19-year-old broke Petrova twice in the second set and managed to hold on after the Russian broke her back when she was serving for the match.

“I was leading 5-1, serving for the match and had a match point, but my concentration went down, I thought the match was going to finish,” Jankovic told Reuters by telephone.

Belgrade-born Jankovic said she was hoping to do better at Wimbledon when the grasscourt grand slam starts next week after a dismal performance in her last appearance there, when she lost in the first round of the juniors’ event.

In the men’s event, Dutchman Raemon Sluiter, who ousted German second seed Rainer Schuettler in the first round, cruised past German qualifier Philipp Petzschner 6-3, 6-0.