Milos Raonic, of Canada, returns to Simone Bolelli, of Italy, during their match at the BNP Paribas Open tennis tournament, Sunday, March 15, 2015, in Indian Wells, Calif.Mark J. Terrill/The Associated Press
Roger Federer dominated Jack Sock in a 6-3, 6-2 victory to reach the quarter-finals at the BNP Paribas Open on Wednesday, with the four-time tournament champion winning 14 consecutive points in the second set.
Federer has yet to drop a set in three matches so far, needing 69 minutes to polish off Sock and earn his 50th match win at Indian Wells.
The American had one highlight game, holding serve at 2-all in the first set after facing two break points and nine deuces. But Federer won four of the next five games to wrap up the set.
Federer broke Sock to open the second set, winning the final point of the first game. That launched a run of 14 straight points as Federer served two love games sandwiched around a break of Sock, giving the Swiss star a 4-0 lead.
Sock fought off three break points to trail 4-1. Federer lost just two points in his last two service games.
Rafael Nadal advanced with a 6-2, 6-4 victory over Gilles Simon to stay on track for a shot at his fourth career title in the desert.
Nadal next plays sixth-seeded Milos Raonic of Thornhill, Ont., who defeated 17th-seeded Tommy Robredo 6-3, 6-2 in a fourth-round match.
Nadal served a love game to close out his match that began as a dust storm swirled outside the stadium under overcast skies. He connected on 70 per cent of his first serves in beating Simon for the seventh time in eight meetings.
Andy Murray defeated Adrian Mannarino 6-3, 6-3 for his 496th career match victory. He tied countryman Tim Henman's record as Britain's most successful player in the Open era.
Murray set up a quarterfinal against 12th-seeded Feliciano Lopez, who upset No. 5 seed Kei Nishikori, 6-4, 7-6 (2).
"I really had one bad game at 5-4," Nishikori said. "Until then I was playing better. I was dominating the strokes. He was hitting good serves, but I had all the chances."
Two former Indian Wells winners were in action at night: Three-time champion Novak Djokovic and two-time winner Serena Williams, who is back in the desert for the first time after ending her 14-year boycott.
Williams brought a 14-match winning streak into her quarterfinal against Timea Bacsinszky, who has won 15 matches in a row. Bacsinszky's 21-2 match record leads the WTA Tour this year.
Three of Raonic's four losses this year have come against Top-10 players, and he'll get another shot at one in third-ranked Nadal.
"Things are going well," Raonic said. "I'm returning, getting myself in a lot of points, returning deep, and giving myself a lot of looks. As the match is going on, I'm getting better, so that's a good sign."
Third-seeded Simona Halep rallied to beat No. 12 Carla Suarez Navarro, 5-7, 6-1, 6-1 and will face either Williams or Bacsinszky in the semifinals.
Halep trailed 4-0 in the first set and said she was nervous to start the match.
"Then I changed my tactic a little bit just to play more into the court and to play more aggressive, to open the court more, and to take the ball very fast," she said. "I wanted to try just to make her run a lot because I know that she's moving well and she's hitting really well close to the body. So I tried just to open the court and to finish the points very quickly."
Murray broke Mannarino twice in the second set and closed it out on his second match point when Mannarino netted a backhand. Murray remains on track for a potential semifinal against Djokovic, who beat the Brit in the Australian Open final in January.
"I made it difficult for my opponents in all of my matches. That's important," Murray said. "I haven't given up too many free points. I have been hitting the ball quite heavy from the back of the court, so it's not been easy for my opponents to attack, which has been good."
Mannarino hadn't dropped a set in three previous matches here. The Frenchman took out 19th-seeded Fabio Fognini and No. 14 Ernests Gulbis before getting stopped by Murray in 1 1/2 hours.
Lopez reached the quarter-finals at Indian Wells for the first time in 13 tries, needing just two sets to beat Nishikori after being stretched to three in his first two matches.
No. 9 Tomas Berdych made the quarter-finals with a 6-2, 4-6, 6-4 victory over No. 27 Lukas Rosol in all-Czech match. Berdych hasn't lost to a fellow countryman in nine years.
The unusually hot temperatures that marked the tournament's first week cooled to 81 degrees (27 Celsius) Wednesday.