The unseeded Safin, 28, who beat third seed Novak Djorkovic in the second round, clinched the match in four sets 6-4, 6-3, 5-7, 6-1 on Monday to the obvious delight of the crowd on Wimbledon's No. 1 court, to reach his first quarterfinal at the grass court championship since 2001.
He will now face Spain's Feliciano Lopez (31).
His younger sister, Dinara Safina (9), did not enjoy the same success, however, after losing in straight sets in the women's doubles to number six seeds Victoria Azarenka and Shahar Peer, who earlier beat Safina in an epic singles match (7-5, 6-7, 8-6) which lasted almost three and a half hours.
In the mixed doubles Russia's Igor Andreyev and Maria Kirilenko are due to play the Czech pair, Lukas Dlouhy and Nicole Vaidisova, in their third round match on court two Tuesday. And Yelena Dementieva (5) and Nadia Petrova (21) will meet each other in their women's singles quarterfinal match on Wimbledon's Centre Court.
In other results Russia's Dmitry Tursunov and Nadia Petrova lost in the mixed doubles to Britain's Jamie Murray and American Liezel Huber, 6-2, 2-6, 9-7.
