DOHA, Qatar — Latvian Ernests “The Gull” Gulbis has advanced to the quarter-finals of the season-opening Qatar ExxonMobil Open, where he will come up against world no. 1 Roger Federer.

The signs have so far been promising for the Latvian, having already sent packing sixth seed Albert Montañés of Spain 6-2, 7-5 which set up on a date with World no. 49 Andreas Seppi of Italy on Wednesday.  Gulbis looked solid in his outing against Seppi, with many glimpses of his blistering back-hand on show as we went on to take the game 6-4, 7-5.

The victory now hands The Gull one of the toughest challenges of his career when he meets Federer on Thursday. In the tournament to date Federer has failed to produce the vintage tennis that he is renowned for but he has still cruised in his first two round matches. Their is little doubt who will be carrying the favoritism tag into the Wednesday match-up.

In having already beaten two quality opponents, Gulbis has proven that he is a much better player than his current world no. 99 ranking would suggest. He is no longer a teenager and he needs to begin to show more maturity on and off the court if he is to become the force so many know he has the potential to be. After having taken on a new trainer late in last season, optimism is high here at Baltic Reports that he can put last year’s less than memorable season behind him and begin to put some consistency into his game.

Kanepi halted in round of 16.

In further tennis news, Estonian Kaia Kinepi has failed to make it through to the quarter-finals of the ASB Open in Auckland, New Zealand.

Kinepi made little work of disposing of Chinese no. 2 seed Li Na in the first-round 6-1, 6-3 but received a taste of her own medicine in the next round as Russian Maria Kirrilenko disposed of the World no. 58 6-2, 6-3