Sixth seed Andrey Rublev reached the seventh Masters 1000 quarter-final of his career with a 7-6(9/7), 7-5 result against Dan Evans of Great Britain in Madrid on Thursday.
It was the second blow of the day for the British as Andy Murray had earlier pulled out of his meeting with Novak Djokovic because of illness.
Rublev bounced back from 1-3 down in the opening set, and saved a set point in the tiebreak before securing a lead in one hour and 15 minutes.
In the second set, Rublev saw an early service break lead wiped by Evans before he made a late move in the 11th game to wrap up a hard-fought victory, his third in five meetings with the Brit.