Indian Wells, 17 March 2011 | AFP

Former US Open champion Juan Martin del Potro survived five second set points en route to beating Philipp Kohlschreiber and advancing to the quarterfinals at Indian Wells on Wednesday.

The 22-year-old Argentinian won the first set in a tiebreaker and looked to be headed for a third set when he fell behind 6-1 in the second tiebreaker but Kohlschreiber couldn’t finish him off.

Del Potro dominated the rest of the tiebreaker, seeing off five set points before capping his victory with an ace to win 7-6(3) 7-6(7) at the WTA and ATP Masters 1000 event.

It was the 11th ace of the match for del Potro who has been one of the hottest players on the ATP Tour this year with a 17-4 record.

In other early matches, Spain’s Tommy Robredo easily beat American Sam Querrey 6-1 6-3 in the first contest of the day on the main stadium.

Taking to the court later in the day is top seed Spaniard Rafael Nadal, world No.2 Roger Federer and hard-serving Croatian Ivo Karlovic.