Roddick crashes out

Though the American gave a trademark display of his power, hitting an amazing four aces in his second service game, Ferrer proved a formidable adversary on his own serve.

The Spaniard ultimately dominated the match with his serve and volley game as much as Roddick did with his aces.

No one looked like breaking at all until Roddick went to 30-40 when he was 5-4 up in the first set. He squandered that break point, plus another two in deuce of that game, handing Ferrer a major reprieve.

The set went to a tie break, and instantly Roddick paid for his earlier profligacy as Ferrer completed a mini-break to go 3-0 up. From there the tie break went with serve, and the Spaniard won it 7-5 to take the first set.

Roddick began to use some of the other shots in his repertoire in the second set, and produced some good rallies and drop shots. One of these led to an argument between Ferrer and the umpire at 5-4.

Roddick hit a winning drop shot over the net but as he did so a ball dropped from his pocket. The umpire gave the point, much to the chagrin of Ferrer, who argued vehemently with him, but to no avail.

That anger proved enough to give Ferrer the edge over Roddick's power, however, as the Spaniard went on to earn a match point in that game, and took it with a terrific passing forehand at the end of a great rally to advance to the quarter finals.

"I was standing too far back," said a disappointed Roddick after the match. "I wasn't imposing myself and I was giving away free points.

"It was a pretty ordinary performance (but) I'm not going to go into panic mode. I know what I did wrong today."

Ferrer will face Russian Nikolay Davydenko in the quarter-finals after the fifth seed hammered Czech 10th seed Tomas Berdych 6-3 6-2.