Top seeds Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic survived an upset-filled day at the BNP Paribas Open to headline the men's quarter-final action starting Thursday.
Federer looked sharp is his straight set win over German Tommy Haas 6-4, 6-4, capitalizing on three of his 11 break points. The Swiss star reached the quarter-finals for the ninth time at Indian Wells.
"A lot of the guys in the top 8 have lost, which is unusual. But then again, it's the first Masters 1000 of the year," Federer said about the quarter-final draw.
Federer's BNP Paribas Open doubles partner, Stanislas Wawrinka, was one of the upset victims Wednesday.
The World No. 3 lost his first match of the season in the Round of 16 to Kevin Anderson 7-6(1), 4-6, 6-1. Anderson will face Federer in the quarter-finals.
"I think I was negative on all the match," Wawrinka said. "I was complaining a lot about my serve, about the way I was playing, and with that, I don't deserve to win matches."
Tenth seed Milos Raonic pulled another upset fighting back to beat No. 5 seed Andy Murray 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. Raonic reeled off 15 aces, winning 83 percent of his first service points.
"I'm just happy with the way things are progressing," Raonic said. "I focused a lot more this event on my attitude and approach during the matches rather than what I'm necessarily playing and just sort of being very hard on myself on that aspect."
"Today, I was just really disappointed with how the last 15 minutes of the match went. That was really, really poor," Murray said.
Raonic will play Alexandr Dolgopolov, who did not experience any letdown after knocking off top seed Rafael Nadal. The No. 28 seed Dolgopolov topped No. 13 seed Fabio Fognini 6-2, 6-4 Wednesday.
The highest seed left in the men's draw, No. 2 Novak Djokovic, needed three sets to advance past Marin Cilic 1-6, 6-2, 6-3 late Wednesday night.
"I believed that I could come back," Djokovic said. "The second set was a whole new story. I reset myself and told myself it was the start of the match. I forgot about the first set and the second and third went really well. It was the intensity I want to have and I hope to keep it up."
Djokovic advanced to the Indian Wells quarter-finals for a seventh time and will play unseeded Frenchman Julien Benneteau.
The other bottom half quarter-final features American John Isner and Ernests Gulbis of Latvia, who both recorded three-set wins earlier Wednesday.
"You know, the conditions here are very favorable to bigger guys with big serves. The ball moves through the air pretty quickly," Isner said. "The courts aren't too fast either. So for guys that are big, it's a perfect surface for us."
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