Murray survives scare to reach last eight in San Jose

SAN JOSE, Feb 15 (Reuters) Defending champion Andy Murray survived a scare to reach the quarter-finals of the San Jose Open with a 6-0 6-7 6-4 win over Dane Kristian Pless.

Pless, the world number 83, had two break points to lead 4-2 in the final set, but Murray rallied for victory to set up a meeting with seventh seed Hyung-Taik Lee of Korea or German Simon Greul.

After 27 minutes, the match looked as good as over as Murray left the Dane swatting returns in frustration.

Pless then went for broke and after trading early breaks, he took advantage of Murray's loss of concentration to snatch the set on a tiebreak, 7-5.

As Murray's frustration grew, the Dane led 3-2 and 40-15 on the Murray serve in the decider but the Scot saved them both and then broke in the next game, before holding on for victory.

Fifth seed Mardy Fish continued his good form as he crushed Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-3 6-2 to reach the second round.

The world number 25, who reached the quarter-finals at the Australian Open last month, hit 11 aces as he raced through to a clash with fellow American Sam Warburg.

Spaniard Feliciano Lopez ousted Rainer Schuettler of Germany 7-6 6-1 while there was better luck for another German, Benjamin Becker, who beat Serbian qualifier Dusan Vemic 6-4 3-6 6-4.

Later yesterday, top seed Andy Roddick, the winner in 2004 and 2005, begins his title campaign against Canadian Frank Dancevic, while second seed James Blake takes on Russian Igor Kunitsyn.

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