Tennis-Thiem reaches last eight in Doha but more seeds tumble

Jan 3 (Reuters) - Top seed Dominic Thiem beat Aljaz Bedene 7-5 6-4 to book a place in the quarter-finals of the Qatar Open while fellow seeded players fell in the second round of the tournament in Doha on Wednesday.

Slovenian Bedene saved 12 out of 15 break points to push the Austrian but the world number five survived the test and is the only seeded player apart from Frenchman Richard Gasquet, who won the event in 2013, not to exit in the opening rounds.

World number 31 Gasquet, the fifth seed, will play Greece's Stefanos Tsitsipas later on Wednesday, with the winner facing Thiem in the next stage.

Seventh-seeded Fernando Verdasco was defeated 6-4 3-6 6-4 by Russian youngster Andrey Rublev while eighth-seed Feliciano Lopez suffered a shock 6-4 7-6(2) loss to Bosnia's Mirza Basic, who is ranked 138 in the world.

The Spanish duo join high-ranking players Pablo Carreno Busta, Tomas Berdych, Albert Ramos-Vinolas and Filip Krajinovic, all of whom exited the tournament in the early stages.

In the quarter-finals, Rublev, 20, will face Croatia's Borna Coric, who ousted Carreno Busta in the first round, while Basic will take on Guido Pella after the Argentine overcame Stefano Travaglia 7-6(4) 6-3.

The last quarter-final will see German Peter Gojowczyk, who knocked out Krajinovic, take on either compatriot Jan-Lennard Struff or France's Gael Monfils. (Reporting by Aditi Prakash in Bengaluru; Editing by Ian Chadband)