Top-seeded David Ferrer reached the quarter-finals of the Unicef Open on Wednesday after beating Leonardo Mayer of Argentina 6-3 6-1 at the grass court tournament.

Ferrer is playing his first tournament since losing to Rafael Nadal in the French Open semi-finals earlier this month. The Spaniard beat Mayer in an hour to set up a quarter-final against Igor Sijsling, the only Dutch player left in the Wimbledon warm-up event.

Ferrer has been seeded seventh at Wimbledon, starting on Monday.

On the women’s side, Francesca Schiavone of Italy saved four match points to beat Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania 6-2 2-6 7-6 (10-8).

The 2010 French Open champion made it tough for herself, serving 14 double faults and falling behind 6-2 in the decisive tiebreaker before fighting back to win.

Schiavone, who beat fifth-seeded Maria Kirilenko in the first round, will play against Kim Clijsters of Belgium in the quarter-finals.

Kirsten Flipkens, the Belgian who ousted top-seeded Samantha Stosur in the first round, beat Daria Gavrilova of Russia 7-5 7-6 (7-4).

In other men’s matches, Tatsuma Ito of Japan took less than an hour to beat third-seeded Austrian Jurgen Melzer 6-2 6-2 and Frenchman Benoit Paire beat eighth-seeded Lukasz Kubot of Poland 6-3 0-6 6-4.