ROTTERDAM, Feb 22: Sleepy seed Nikolay Davydenko had to jolt himself awake to win from a pre-noon start on Thursday and reach the quarter-finals of the Rotterdam Open.

The top seed, who insists that an annual near-nonstop playing schedule is the best for him, defeated French qualifier Marc Gicquel 6-3, 6-3.

After winning the last night match on Monday, the Russian, an anonymous world number three, had requested not to play a programme-opening contest on Thursday.

But that slot is exactly what he got, with Davydenko making the best of the situation to beat 29-year-old French number 44 Giquel, who now stands 0-3 lifetime against Top 10 opponents.

“It's a strange time, 11 a.m.,” said Davydenko, who played 32 events in 2006 to finish on his career-high ranking behind Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal. “You have to get up at 8, then when I warmed up at 9:30, I felt dead. You play a lot fresher in the afternoon, I didn't have the perfect concentration during the match.”

Davydenko took a precautionary ankle taping in the 70-minute victory, which included seven aces and three breaks of the French journeyman.—AFP