By Pritha Sarkar
LONDON, June 27 - France's Sebastien Grosjean set
up an intriguing quarter-final showdown with his friend and
practice partner Andy Roddick after edging past Russia's Dmitry
4-6 7-6 3-6 6-3 6-1 at Wimbledon on Monday.
The ninth seed had to keep his wits about him for almost
3-1/2 hours as he battled to come from behind to beat the
Russian.
Playing the 450th match of his career, Grosjean sealed
Tursunov's fate with a scorching service winner.
A semi-finalist at the All England Club for the past two
years, Grosjean will be aiming to defeat American Roddick for
the first time on the slick surface when they meet on Wednesday.
"Seb's getting through every week on grass," said Roddick,
who leads their overall head-to-head record 6-1. "He's proven
that he's one of the top five grass courters in the world.
That's definitely tough to deal with."
Roddick has beaten the Frenchman at Queen's for each of the
past three years en route to claiming a hat-trick of Stella
Artois titles.
Despite their friendship, Roddick warned it will be an all
out war when the two face each other across the net in the
Wimbledon quarter-finals.
"We actually practise together a lot on the road," said last
year's runner-up. "We're pretty friendly."
"He's been a pretty good friend since I've been on tour. We
normally practice at tournaments a bunch.
"We have a good time. Obviously it's tough when you're
competing every day to try to rip each other's heads off in
practice, as well.