Cilic fired eight aces and
lost only seven points behind his first serve while breaking Zeballos's serve
three times. The third-seeded Cilic is the highest seeded player left in the
last eight. He has reached the quarterfinals in Munich for the fourth time in
four tries.
Seventh-seeded Nikolay
Davydenko of Russia rallied to beat German qualifier Julian Reister 3-6, 7-6
(5), 6-1.
Davydenko won the tournament
in 2004.
Cilic and Davydenko, a former
No. 3 in the world, will play each other in the quarterfinals.
Another former Munich
champion, Philipp Kohlschreiber, won an all-German match against “lucky loser”
Denis Gremelmayr 6-3, 6-3.
The eighth-seeded
Kohlschreiber saved the four break points he faced and converted three of six
opportunities.
He won the title in Munich in
2007.
In his second quarterfinal of
the year, Kohlschreiber will face Radek Stepanek, who outlasted German wild
card Dustin Brown 7-6 (6), 6-7 (5), 6-3 despite squandering a 5-2 lead in the
second set.
Fifth-seeded Florian Mayer of
Germany edged Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia 6-4, 7-6 (1) to set up a
quarterfinal showdown with Bulgarian teenager Grigor Dimitrov, who advanced on
Wednesday.
