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Unseeded Italian Alessandro Bega put his best foot forward to oust tournament top seed Somdev DevVarman in straight sets to coast into the last eight of the AirAsia Open, $50,000 Challenger Event here on Thursday.

With an ATP ranking of 331, the 27-year-old Italian fought back from being a break down twice in the first set to force the tie-breaker. Broken in the third and 11th games, Bega leveled back breaking his higher ranked opponent in the eighth and 12th games.

In the tie-breaker, Bega raced away to a 4-0 lead only to see Somdev claw back to level at 6-all. However, the Italian showed determination and with Somdev committing unforced errors, clinched the set winning the tie-breaker 9-7.

The second set too saw some drama with Somedev being broken in the third game. The Indian Davis Cupper came back strongly to level games at four-all by breaking Bega in the 6th game.

But inconsistency crept into Somdev’s play and the Indian committed too many unforced errors to be broken in the 11th game and the Italian served out the 12th game to claim the set and match.

In another match, determination and a little luck saw Indian Sanam Singh making it to the last eight with a thrilling victory over Egor Gerasimov of Belarus.

The Belarussian, serving for the match in the final set tie-break saw a return from the Indian hit the net chord forcing him to alter his approach to the net. That split second distraction gave Sanam Singh the chance to level the tie-break scores at 6-all and he then grabbed the opportunity to serve out for the match clinching the next two points, with Egor hitting a return wide.

Earlier, Sanam Singh was on song in the first set breaking the Belarussian World No 323 in the first, third and fifth games to clinch the first set 6-2.

But Egor was not done as he came back strongly to reverse the situation in the second set. He broke the Indian in the second, fourth and eighth games to level set scores.

The decider saw Sanam breaking Egor in the third and ninth games and being broken in the 6th and 10th games.

Tournament No 2 seed James Ward took his appointed place in the quarter-finals with a 6-3, 6-4 verdict over Ilya Ivashka of Belarus and American Daniel Nguyen ousted seventh seed Russian Alexander Kudryavtsev in two tie-break sets, 7-6 (7), 7-6 (3),

The second seeded pair of Saketh Myneni and Sanam Singh made short work of the Sood Brothers, Chandril and Lakshit to move into the last four of the doubles competition with a 6-2, 6-4 victory.