MONACO, Monaco – Canadian Milos Raonic defeated Spain’s Tommy Robredo 6-4, 6-3 on Thursday to reach the quarter-finals at the Monte Carlo Masters.

The 23-year-old from Thornhill, Ont., will next take on either Australian Open champion Stanislas Wawrinka, who earned a walkover when Spanish opponent Nicolas Almagro retired before their match with a foot injury.

Wawrinka has beaten Raonic in both of their previous meetings.

“I’ve struggled in the past against Stan but it will be quite different this time around,” said Raonic. “I’m doing a lot of things well and I’m looking forward to that challenge.”

Raonic had seven aces in his third-round match and broke Robredo’s serve once per set while never facing a challenge on his own serve. The Canadian also beat Robredo in their previous meeting last spring in Barcelona.

His next match marks a breakthrough for the Canadian as it will be his first quarter-final appearance at a clay-court 1000 Series event.

“This is a first, that’s for sure,” said Raonic. “It’s a result of a lot of the good things I’m doing. But I can do better and I’m looking forward to bringing that out in myself.

“This is the closest I’ve gotten to a big clay opportunity, so it’s definitely a positive.”

Raonic claimed the opening set against Robredo with a break in the final game, smashing down an overhead winner on his second set point.

The Canadian jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the second set when a Robredo return wide down the line. Raonic then stayed the course to serve out the victory, finishing in just over an hour.

“I’m very pleased with myself, I showed a lot of discipline,” Raonic said. “I struggled in the beginning but was able to figure it all out towards the end of the set. I gave myself a lot of opportunities afterwards.”

As usual, Raonic credited his world-class serve with keeping him out of trouble.

“Serving well was a big thing today, I was also moving well and able to dictate with my forehand.

“I’ve played a lot of the Spanish guys in practice matches,” said the former pupil of Spaniard Galo Blanco. “I definitely have more of an understanding of what I need to do and what I can expect from them as well.”

The victory boosted the eighth-seeded Raonic to 10-3 on the season.

Also Thursday, eight-time champion Rafael Nadal had little trouble reaching the quarter-finals by beating Italian Andreas Seppi 6-1, 6-3.

Having looked a little rusty in the second round on Wednesday, where he trailed 3-1 against Teymuraz Gabashvili, the Spaniard was more clinical this time and raced into a 4-0 lead.

The top-seeded Nadal was only briefly troubled in the second set when Seppi broke him to love to pull back to 4-3 down. But Seppi could not hold and Nadal served out the match.

He next faces sixth-seeded David Ferrer or No. 12 Grigor Dimitrov.

Nadal won the tournament eight times in succession before losing last year’s final to Novak Djokovic.

Toronto’s Daniel Nestor and Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic faced the Polish duo of Mariusz Fyrstenberg and Marcin Matowski in men’s doubles play later in the day.

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With files from The Associated Press.