After Sam Querrey reached the Houston quarterfinals with a victory on Wednesday, four of his compatriots eyed the same destination on Thursday.  Steve Johnson, Donald Young, Jack Sock, and Michael Russell all faced opponents from outside the United States at the U. S. Clay Court Championships.  How did each of them fare?

Steve Johnson:  The former NCAA star at USC had played only two ATP main-draw matches on clay before this week.  After defeating compatriot Denis Kudla in the first round, Johnson faced a much sterner test against Spanish veteran Fernando Verdasco.  A former Masters 1000 finalist on clay in Monte Carlo, Verdasco dominated Johnson in a first-set bagel.  As he often does, the Spaniard then lost the plot in the second set and double-faulted on the only break point of the set.  Johnson needed no further invitation to level the match, a solid effort in itself considering the surface and the opponent.  Verdasco broke the former Trojan early in the final set, however, and closed out the match without much ado.

Donald Young:  A lefty more reliant on touch than power, Young never had reached an ATP quarterfinal on clay.  Nor had he reached an ATP quarterfinal on any surface since finishing runner-up at Bangkok in 2011.  Young squared off against Argentine clay specialist Juan Monaco, who briefly cracked the top 10 in his prime.  Monaco's fortunes have dwindled sharply over the last two years, even on clay, but he still held a top-50 ranking and the sixth seed in Houston.  After Young dropped the first set in a tiebreak, he rallied to claim the next two in a match when both men struggled on serve.  The ability to convert break points played a crucial role, Young pouncing on seven of eight and Monaco on just four of 14.  Up next for Young is Verdasco.

Jack Sock:  Unlike Johnson and Young, Sock did not face an opponent with a strong clay-court edge.  German veteran Benjamin Becker has produced his best results on hard courts, so their encounter featured two unseeded men who battled the surface as much as each other.   Although Sock entered as the lower-ranked player, he had compiled a stronger record in 2014 than Becker had.  Eleven years younger than the German, he prevailed in just 73 minutes to reach his third quarterfinal of 2014.  Houston marked Sock's first clay quarterfinal in just his third Tour-level event on the surface. 

Michael Russell:  Closing in on his 36th birthday, Russell fell to top-20 opponent Nicolas Almagro in a straight-sets result that surprised few observers.  Russell rarely has registered a notable victory on clay, while Almagro has become a serial quarterfinalist at Roland Garros.  He will face Sock in an intriguing quarterfinal.