Seles mentally ready for Stevenson

Monica Seles yesterday cruised into the quarter-finals of the Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo.

Seles, seeded third and coming from the heady heights of reaching the last four of the Australian Open, beat the Belgian qualifier Els Callens, 6-3, 6-3. Trying to reach the semi-finals for the first time since 1999, Seles is scheduled to meet Alexandra Stevenson, who won three qualifying matches to advance to the main draw and eliminated the eighth-seeded Amanda Coetzer, of South Africa, 4-6, 6-0, 7-6 yesterday.

Tamarine Tanasugarn, of Thailand, who like Stevenson is seeking her first career title, registered a 6-3, 2-6, 6-2 win over the sixth-seeded Magdalena Maleeva, of Bulgaria.

In the Milan Indoor Tournament, Roger Federer was pushed hard before he quelled the Russian Nikolay Davydenko. After winning 6-3, 6-7, 7-5, the second seed set up a quarter-final encounter with his Swiss compatriot Michael Kratochvil, who beat Sargis Sargisian. Sjeng Schalken waltzed into the last eight with a 6-3, 6-0 win over the Brazilian Andre Sa. Today he faces Greg Rusedski for a place in the semis. The top seed Juan Carlos Ferrero lost to Italy's Davide Sanguinetti for the third time in a month, this time 6-2, 6-4.

In Bangalore, Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi were knocked out of the World Doubles Challenge Cup. The Indians were beaten 7-6, 7-5 by the Czech brothers-in-law Petr Pala and Pavel Vizner.