Aljaz Bedene beats Gilles Simon in Winston-Salem Open shock

British No 2 Aljaz Bedene produced one of the biggest wins of his career as he knocked out top seed Gilles Simon at the Winston-Salem Open.

Bedene, playing in the tournament on a wildcard, beat the Frenchman in three tie-break sets 6-7 7-6 7-6, surviving two match points along the way.

He will face another French player - Pierre-Hugues Herbert - for a place in the quarter-finals at the tournament in North Carolina.

"I haven't beaten someone in the top 10 yet, so this is my best win," Bedene said.

"It was tough. Gilles is known as one of the toughest guys on the tour. Coming back after losing the first set, and having served for it, is never easy.

"He was returning well, and I was returning well. We did not have so much advantage with our serve. 

Sometimes there were games to zero, sometimes there were long ones. It was a close match  three tie-breaks. I don't think I've ever played on the ATP Tour with three tie-breaks."

Simon was one of four seeded players to fall during Tuesday's second round - Taiwan's Yen-Hsun Lu upset fifth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain 6-3 6-3; South Korea's Hyeon Chung beat ninth seed Benoit Paire of France 6-1 6-4 and Argentina's Diego Schwartzman downed 12th-seeded Pablo Andujar of Spain 4-6 7-5 7-5.

Second seed Kevin Anderson needed three sets to beat Mikhail Kukushkin 4-6 6-2 6-3 and it was a similar story for third ranked Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who battled past Denis Istomin 5-7 6-4 6-1.