Roddick comes through

In a men’s draw needing name recognition in the later rounds, Andy Roddick gave the Pacific Life Open at Indian Wells exactly that Tuesday night, bombing away with 15 aces in a 7-6 (3), 6-3 advance into the quarterfinals.

The United States’ top male player beat France’s Richard Gasquet, the 20-year-old No. 1 Frenchman, who served and played well himself, but could not deal with the service and groundstroke power of Roddick. Roddick won the tiebreaker with a 114-mile-per-hour, kick-serve ace, then won 12 of the first 13 points of the second set. The third-seeded Roddick will play Ivan Ljubicic in the quarterfinals.

Ljubicic, now that his ghost of two tournaments past has gone away, likes his chances.

Seeded eighth in this Tennis Masters Series event, he defeated 10th-seeded David Nalbandian of Argentina, 2-6, 6-4, 6-2.

Roddick or Ljubicic will play the winner of the Rafael Nadal-Juan Ignacio Chela quarterfinal.

Nadal embarrassed fellow Spaniard Juan Carlos Ferrero, 6-1, 6-1, in a match that Ferrero, once a French Open champion, was barely able to stretch to an hour.

To get to the semifinals, Nadal will have to go through Chela of Argentina, who beat Michael Russell, 6-4, 6-4.

Ljubicic can celebrate his 28th birthday a day early by winning the title Sunday. The last two years here, he mostly got cake in the face from his friend, Roger Federer.

Federer, the world’s No. 1, lost his opening match Sunday and left the rest of the men’s field stunned and giggling.

“I lost the last two years to Roger,” Ljubicic said, “and he’s not around anymore, so maybe, you know, I can go all the way.”

Asked his thoughts about a possible match with Roddick, Ljubicic said, “I’d prefer Andy to Roger. I mean, anyone to Roger.”

While Nalbandian took a 6-2 lead, Ljubicic whistled for the trainer. Bothered by a suddenly sore right knee, he was basically going through the motions.

The trainer massaged the knee, applied analgesic, and told Ljubicic that it was inflammation of a patella tendon, that he wouldn’t hurt it anymore by continuing and that it would probably get better as he went along. A disbelieving Ljubicic told himself that, if his serve were broken again, he would default the match.

It wasn’t, the trainer was right, and soon Ljubicic was bombing Nalbandian off the court.

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bill.dwyre@latimes.com