The quick temper that Xavier Malisse thought he had overcome was back to haunt him. The Belgian scowled and broke a racquet with a single whack on the foot, but, to his credit, overcame the early moments of madness to race into the quarter-finals of the Chennai Open.
In contrast, Carlos Moya, wearing a bright red and black outfit, was all calm and precision as he outdid the consummate Kevin Kim in straight sets to make the last eight.
Malisse beat Italy's Stefano Galvani 6-3, 6-2 while the Spanish number five seed beat the United States' Kim 6-4, 6-3 in an hour and 21 minutes at the Nungabkkam stadium on Wednesday.
Malisse stared the proceedings on a low-profile day, after an action-packed one on Wednesday, with some erratic serving. He traded breaks with Galvani in the first two games of the match, which lasted for 19 minutes. The small evening crowd grew increasingly edgy with the players dishing out errors aplenty.
But the Belgian slowly got into his groove, pushing Galvani behind with hiss deep ground strokes. He broke the Italian on the first two serves and held on to win the set 6-3.
He served five aces in the second set, compared to one in the first. Galvani held serve only in the first game of the set as he let Malisse have a frequent look at his second serve.
Twice champion Moya, meanwhile, got around the pretty Kim backhand to give the 28-year-old from California some important lessons in consistency.
The Spaniard, who won the 1998 French Open is one of the longest surviving players in the game and completed 500 professional wins last season. Moya, on Wednesday, showed how he has tackled an solved the variety of styles tennis throws up for the past 11 years on tour.
Apart from his strong serve and scything forehand, his passing shots were a treat too watch for their precision.
The players traded breaks in the third an fourth games of the first set. Kim tried to run the former champion close by attacking the net and with his cracking cross court drives; he was able to survive Moya's wrath on his own survive games but the Mallorcan's strong serving didn't give him too many opportunities to take the lead.
"It was a good match, I am happy the way I've been playing and felt the ball better than yesterday," said Moya. "It was difficult to sort him out in the beginning, I didn't know what his strengths but once I broke him back I was feeling pretty well."
Moya showed his class in the tenth game, when he started with a forehand pass, then passed Kim on the run, folllowed it up with a delicate forehand crosscourt volley to set up three set points. Kim saved one with a service winner but missed an easy forehand drive volley to hand Moya the opening set.
With his serve in trouble in the opening game of the second set, Moya closed it out with two aces. He broke Kim in the fourth game and served out the match at 6-3.
"I served well on important points; I think I won because of my serve," he said. "Kim is a good all-round players and the match was a lot closer than the score suggests."
