Heading into what was the first ATP Tour 500 Event of the year, it looked as though the ABN AMRO World Tennis Tournament in Rotterdam could be one heck of an opening act. While none of the so-called big three are participating in this week’s tour stop, it is a field that includes four of the top ten players in the world…one of those being defending champion Tomas Berdych.

After watching Grigor Dimitrov fall in his second round match to Gilles Muller, it looked as though we might have been headed for a tournament filled with upsets but thankfully that was not the case. While the number five seed was sent home early, the quartet of top seed Andy Murray, Berdych, Milos Raonic and Stan Wawrinka all found their way into the final eight during Thursday’s session.

While the 2015 Australian Open semi-finalist was pushed to the limit by Andreas Seppi during their second round match, the talented Czech was still able to advance to the quarter-finals with a 6-0, 3-6, 6-3 victory. To his credit, the Italian rebounded nicely after a tough opening set to force a third and deciding set.

Despite having to go the distance, Berdych was quite content with his overall performance, especially considering how good Seppi has looked to start 2015. In case you have forgotten, the No. 35 player in the world was the player who upset Roger Federer in the third round at this year’s Aussie Open and followed that up with an appearance in the finale of the PBZ Zagreb Indoors in Croatia.

 “I think it was very solid, it was not an easy opponent to play. We have all seen what he has done over the last couple of weeks in Melbourne and Zagreb…so it was not easy at all.”

While he struggled with his serve in the second set, the No. 3 seed was able to recover in time to advance to what should be a quarterfinal match of the highest quality against fan favourite Gael Monfils.

Wawrinka was also made to work in what was a rematch of his Round of Sixteen battle in Australia against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez. While the hard-working Spaniard forced the than defending champ into playing four extremely competitive sets before eventually bowing out, he accomplished the feat one more time but once again, could not get over that hump to pull off the upset.

Garcia-Lopez was the better player during their opening set tiebreak but the Swiss No. 2 improved as the match moved along and simply would not be denied in winning 6-7(2), 6-4, 6-2 and booking his ticket into the next round and a date against Muller. Despite being just a handful of weeks into the 2015 season, the thirty-one year old has already managed to knock off a trio of seeded players in Dimitrov, Roberto Bautista Agut and American John Isner.

While the duo of Berdych and Wawrinka were forced to put in some extra court time to move on, the top two seeds were able to do so in what was fairly straightforward fashion. Murray continued his impressive run of late, taking out Vasek Pospisil in two extremely entertaining and competitive sets 6-3, 7-5. The up and coming Canadian actually served for the second set but was unable to close the deal against the four-time Australian Open finalist.

Same goes for Raonic, who needed the help of a second set tiebreaker to get past Italian Simone Bolelli 6-3, 7-6(2). While the hard-serving Canadian was made to break a sweat, the No. 2 seed was never in danger of dropping his serve and eventually overpowered his opponent when it mattered most.

Murray will now face No. 8 seed Gilles Simon in the quarters, following the Frenchman’s 6-4, 6-3 win over Jeremy Chardy and could very well find himself in a rematch of this year’s Aussie Open semi-final against Berdych.  While Raonic will need to get by Sergiy Stakhovsky in order to setup a potential final four date with Wawrinka and quite possibly his second final of the season.