Kwon Soon-woo reaches quarterfinals at Biella Indoor 2

Kwon Soon-woo during the Australian Open on Feb. 9, 2021. [TENNIS AUSTRALIA]

Korean tennis player Kwon Soon-woo earned a spot in the quarterfinals at the ATP Challenger Biella Indoor 2 in Biella, Italy on Wednesday.

World No. 97 Kwon beat Roberto Marcora of Italy in the Round of 16 at the Biella Indoor 2. Kwon beat the world No. 182 in two straight sets: 6-2, 6-2.

Kwon, who participated in the tournament after failing to make it past the first round at the Australian Open, will now face either world No. 174 Thomas Fabbiano of Italy or world No. 175 Yannick Maden of Germany in the semifinals.

The ATP Challenger Biella Indoor 2 is a minor tournament that does not pull in big name players, so Kwon enters the tournament as the third highest seed at the tournament, after world No. 94 Alejandro Davidovich Fokina of Spain and world No. 88 Sebastien Korda of the United States.

Korda was eliminated in the first round, making Kwon highly likely to reach the final stages of the contest.

Kwon has picked up one win in 2021 so far, beating Slovak tennis player Andrej Martin in the Round of 64 at the Great Ocean Road Open in three sets on Feb. 1. He went on to be knocked out of the tournament in the Round of 32, losing in straight sets to Miomir Kecmanovic of Serbia.

Kwon competed in the first round of the Australian Open last week, but was knocked out of the tournament immediately by Australia's Thanasi Kokkinakis, who beat Kwon in straight sets: 6-4, 6-1, 6-1.

Kwon was having the best year of his career last year before the coronavirus pandemic interrupted the tennis season. He advanced to the second round at the U.S. Open, his best grand slam performance to date. As a result, Kwon also briefly shot up to No. 69 in the ATP World Ranking.

BY SEO JI-EUN, JIM BULLEY [seo.jieun1@joongang.co.kr]