Top seed Markus Wieser believes the winner of his quarter-final today with Chris Law will go on to the finals of the King Edward VII Gold Cup on Sunday.

But Germany's Wieser, unbeaten in the first championship round against Britain's Jessie Cuthbert, also thinks the pair should have met a round later in the last four and criticised the seeding of the event.

"I think the team winning tomorrow is almost sure of going through to the finals,'' he said yesterday. "I mean, I think us against Chris should be the semi-finals now. Peter Bromby is very strong, especially in Bermuda with these boats so I think it was a little bit of mis-seeding when he had to take on Chris Law.

"If we come through, we have a little bit of an easier semi-final -- although nothing is easy.'' Law, number 12 in the world, but a year ago ranked as high as two, has cut down on his match racing commitments. He entered late and subsequently had to come through the qualifiers.

Wieser, likewise, does not race as a full-time professional -- he has a business and a family back in Germany and that, he thinks, has helped him have a successful year in which he has finished sixth at the Match Racing World Championships and second at the Congressional Cup despite a change in crew from 12 months ago.

"We don't sail full-time,'' said Wieser, who hails from Starnberg. "I have a business and four children. We just go out and have fun and I think sometimes that's much better.

"If you are a professional you have to win, because that's your job, that's your business.

"For us -- we just go out and try our best. If we win it's great, if not, nothing's changed. So we are not under so much pressure.

"I think also Chris has slowed down the amount of match racing he is doing.

Maybe that's why he is doing very well at the moment -- because he is very relaxed.'' However, Wieser could see no obvious technical differences between him and Law which would offer clues to a winner today.

"We have sailed here in Bermuda a lot -- both of us -- and we know the boats well.

"You have to be lucky; you have to get the right winds shifts to get ahead and stay ahead. The top ten in the world are more or less on the same level at the moment and anyone can beat anybody.'' Law's continued success in the tournament does, however, maintain local interest in the competition, despite the eliminations yesterday of Paula Lewin and Adam Barboza, because his crew of three are all Bermudians.

Number seven seed Lewin, tied overnight at 1-1 with American Andrew Horton, seemed to have the best chance of advancing to today's quarter finals, but Horton turned out to be too strong, winning both flights for a 3-1 victory in the best-of-five series.

Barboza, meanwhile, already trailing Swedish third seed Magnus Holmberg by 2-0 overnight, slipped up by 37 seconds in the third flight to end his interest in this year's event.

Elsewhere yesterday Denmark's Jes Gram-Hansen defeated America's David Whelan by a little over a minute for a 3-0 score and Marten Hedlund saw off Canada's Peter Hall by the same margin.