DUBAI, March 4: Paradorn Srichaphan's bid to avenge his emotional defeat before his home crowd in the Thailand Open in Bangkok five months ago ended in the narrowest of failures, a broken racket, an umpire's warning and yet more frustration.

The seventh seeded Thai player was beaten 7-6 (8/6), 4-6, 7-5 by Ivan Ljubicic in a tough two-hour, 25-minute struggle in the fierce afternoon sun in the second round of the Dubai Open just when it looked as though he had the Croatian wilting.

Nevertheless it was the Thai player's mistakes which were the crucial factor at the climax of the match. Srichaphan had two points to reach 6-5, and from the second of them he made three relatively unforced errors with his best shot, his attacking topspin forehand drive, with Ljubicic desperately trying to contain at the baseline.

Ljubicic often served very well, delivering 17 aces, and he mixed up the pace well. But it was really the Croatian's mental qualities, hanging in there when Srichaphan found hot streaks with his baseline attacking, which more than anything squeezed out his narrow success.

Ljubicic saved two set points at 4-6 and 5-6 in the first set tie-break and overcame the final set disappointments of twice having Srichaphan at love-30 on his serve and being denied.

It was all the more aggravating for Srichaphan that the defeat should come after he had made a notable comeback. He went a set and a break down when he dropped serve for 3-4 in the second set, at which stage he took an injury time out to have his left ankle iced.

The six-minute delay altered the balance of the match. Ljubicic restarted with a double fault and dropped serve for the first time in the match, and in Ljubicic's next service game when he was serving to save the set Srichaphan came up with his most brilliant winners of the contest.

But it was not quite enough, and Ljubicic goes through to play a quarterfinal with Feliciano Lopez, the aggressive left-handed Spaniard who made his Davis Cup debut in the final in Melbourne in November.

Lopez reached the last eight by winning 6-3, 6-4 against Philipp Kohlschreiber, the German qualifier who in the first round upset his compatriot Rainer Schuttler, the world number six.

Srichaphan's defeat also ensured that an unseeded player would contest Sunday's final. All the seeds have been beaten in a bottom half which had also included Mark Philippoussis, the Wimbledon finalist from Australia, and Guillermo Coria, the world number five from Argentina.

Second round results: