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"&lt;p&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (AP) -- Defending champion John Isner overcame two rain delays to advance in straight sets, while Andy Roddick was eliminated from the Winston-Salem Open on Wednesday.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The third-seeded Isner, ranked 10th in the world, needed only 71 minutes after the two delays to beat 13th-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria 6-4, 6-3 in the third round at the Wake Forest Tennis Complex.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;The fifth-seeded Roddick, a former world No. 1 player now ranked 21st, fell to 81st-ranked Steve Darcis of Belgium 7-6 (8-6), 7-6 (7-3), in the final hard-court tournament before the U.S. Open next week in New York.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Isner, born in nearby Greensboro, will face Belgium's David Goffin in a quarterfinal match Thursday. Goffin held off Poland's Lukasz Kubot 6-3, 1-6, 7-6 (7-5).&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yet getting on the court proved to be a challenge for Isner and Melzer - their match was pushed back by a nearly two-hour rain delay, then delayed an additional 45 minutes when it rained again during warmups.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;However, Isner didn't show any signs of sluggishness, serving 14 aces - two coming on second serves - and breaking Melzer's serve twice in beating the left-hander for the first time in three tries.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"It's never easy playing at night, and the rain made it more difficult,'' Isner said. \"But I played well. I served well, and I hit my second serve especially well. All in all, I'm very happy with the match, and very happy I'm still alive.''&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Roddick had 13 aces, but the 2003 U.S. Open champion struggled to find consistency with his ground strokes and Darcis' short game, whose drop shots caught Roddick flat-footed several times.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"I did not expect this,'' Darcis said. \"When I came here, I was not playing so good. But I had two good first matches, and here I play very good tennis. ... OK, Andy didn't play his best tennis, but for me it's a great win, especially before the U.S. Open.''&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Roddick smashed his racket after losing the first set, and argued with chair umpire Carlos Bernardes on a let serve call early in the second set.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;\"I served Ok, but I didn't return too well and I wasn't hitting the ball clean out there today,'' said Roddick, who had beaten Darcis in two previous meetings. \"If I don't lose serve, I should do fine, and I didn't. That just speaks to how far off the rest of my game was today.''&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Darcis will play second-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, who beat Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 6-3, 6-2.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Top-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France also advanced to the quarterfinals along with fourth-seeded Alexandr Dolgopolov of the Ukraine, sixth-seeded Marcel Granollers of Spain, and seventh-seeded Sam Querrey.&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Tsonga defeated Sergiy Stakhowsky of the Ukraine 7-6 (7-1), 6-4; Dolgopolov beat No. 14 David Nalbandian of Argentina 6-3, 6-4; Granollers rallied to beat Latvia's Ernests Gulbis 4-6, 6-3, 6-2; and Querrey edged ninth-seeded Feliciano Lopez of Spain 6-3, 6-4.&lt;/p&gt;"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.si.com/tennis/2012/08/22/winston-salem-open-andy-roddick>