BySimon Griver, Simon Griver
1 min read
Andy Ram and Jonathan Erlich reached the quarter final of the Israel Open with a 4-6, 6-1, 10-8 victory over Simon Stadler and Amir Hadad.
The pairing had not played together since Erlich injured his elbow last August.
Ram and Erlich agreed that Ram will continue playing part of the time with his new partner Max Mirnyi of Belarus and partly with Ram ahead of Israel's quarter-final Davis Cup tie at home to Russia in July.
Dudi Sela reached the last eight in the singles competition. Sela had a straight sets win over Australia's Brydan Klein. The top seed brushed aside fellow Israeli Noam Okun (311) 6-1 6-1 in the first round. Remarkably, only three of the eight seeds made it into the second round Sela said: "It's always a pleasure to play in front of the home crowd at Ramat Hasharon. It's just a shame that Noam never really got into his stride.
Having conquered fourth seed Michael Berrer (111) 6-4 6-4 in round one, Harel Levy earned a bye into the quarters after India's Prakash Amritraj withdrew due to injury.
Shahar Peer reached the third round of the Estoril Open in Portugal after seeing off Barbora Zahlavova Strycova of the Czech Republic to reach her first quarter final since February. Peer (54) was taken to three sets by 17-year-old Michelle Larcher de Brito (136) in the first round.