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Greensboro's John Isner advanced to the quarterfinals of the Thailand Open by defeating Mischa Zverev of Germany 7-6 (5), 6-4 on Thursday in Bangkok. The 48th-ranked Isner will face fourth-seeded Viktor Troicki of Serbia.

"He hits the ball really big," Isner said of Troicki. "So do I. It will be a good match. He has won a lot of matches this year. That's why he's 32nd in the world."

Defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga won a three-tiebreaker match against Ernests Gulbis 6-7 (3), 7-6 (4), 7-6 (2) to advance.

American Kevin Kim lost to Gilles Simon of France 6-2, 6-2. The second-seeded Simon, who retired with a knee injury during the U.S. Open, dominated play with his baseline game.

Andreas Beck of Germany also cruised with a 6-1, 6-7 (3), 6-4 victory over Donald Young of the United States. In other second-round matches, American Robby Ginepri lost to Evgeny Korolev 6-1, 6-1 and Marat Safin lost to Marco Chiudinelli 6-3, 7-6 (4).

SHARAPOVA IN SEMIS: Maria Sharapova advanced to the semifinals of the Toray Pan Pacific Open in Tokyo with a 6-4, 7-5 win over Iveta Benesova.

Former No. 1 Sharapova served to go up 6-5 in the final set and then broke Benesova to close out the match in 1 hour, 39 minutes.

"I feel like I'm starting to get the feeling back of being able to figure things out automatically," Sharapova said. "Like knowing when you have to be patient and when you have to be aggressive."

Sharapova won her first tournament as a professional at the Japan Open in 2003 and won in Tokyo in 2005.

WOMEN'S SOCCER

NO. 9 WAKE FOREST 0, DUKE 0: Wake Forest (8-2-2, 0-1-1 ACC) and Duke (4-4-3, 0-1-1) combined for 35 shots, but neither team scored as the Demon Deacons and Blue Devils played to a scoreless tie on Thursday at Spry Stadium.

N.C. STATE 2, CLEMSON 1: Freshman Kara Blosser scored twice to give N.C. State (7-3-1, 2-1) over Clemson (3-8, 0-3) in ACC action Thursday from Dail Soccer Field.

MEN'S GOLF

PRIDE NO. 2: The Greensboro College men's golf team is ranked second in the nation in the Golfstat rankings released this week. Dirk Fennie's team trails only Methodist in the statistical ratings. The Pride placed second to the Monarchs at the Greensboro College Invitational, which concluded Tuesday. Led by individual runerup Brock Elder, GC recorded a two-day 591 (292-299).