Rio de Janeiro, Feb 23 (IANS): Spain's Albert Ramos-Vinolas cruised into the quarter-finals of the Rio Open tennis tournament with a 6-2, 6-3 victory over Italy's Fabio Fognini here.

The 45th-ranked Italian struggled repeatedly to hold serve on the red clay at the Jockey Club Brasileiro on Wednesday, getting broken five times and winning fewer than 50 percent of his overall serve points, reports Efe.

By contrast, the 25th-ranked Ramos-Vinolas only lost serve twice en route to a routine win in less than an hour and 20 minutes.

Fognini had dominated his head-to-head against Ramos-Vinolas, winning eight of their nine previous matches, including all four of their previous contests on clay.

Earlier on Wednesday, Argentina's 123rd-ranked qualifier Nicolas Kicker and 51st-ranked Diego Schwartzman advanced to the final eight with respective straight-set victories.

Kicker defeated Belgian qualifier Arthur De Greef 6-3, 6-3 while Schwartzman topped countryman Federico Delbonis 6-4, 7-6 (7-1).

The fifth-seeded Ramos-Vinolas will next take on Kicker in the quarter-finals. Schwartzman will play the winner between second-seeded Austrian Dominic Thiem and Serbian Dusan Lajovic.

The Rio Open is part of a Latin American clay-court swing that also includes events in Quito, Buenos Aires, Acapulco, Mexico and Sao Paulo.