ROME, May 7: Roger Federer settled a score with his bogey player Guillermo Canas on Tuesday, easing his way into the third round of the Rome Masters with a 6-3, 6-3 victory.
Canas went into the game as one of the few players on the tour to hold a winning record against the world No 1, but Tuesday’s result evened things up at three victories apiece.
Federer made an assured start, breaking Canas in the middle of the first set before producing two aces and a delightful drop shot to hold his serve to love at the end of it.
The Argentine came closest to breaking his opponent in the sixth game of the second set, when Federer was lucky to save a break point with a net-cord winner.
Federer, beaten finalist here in 2003 and 2006, never looked back, breaking Canas’s serve twice in the last three games.
Federer reached the Monte Carlo Masters final in Monaco last month, losing to his main rival Spaniard Rafael Nadal.
Nadal, aiming for his fourth consecutive Rome Masters title, will meet unseeded 2001 champion Juan
Carlos Ferrero in a second-round match on Wednesday after his compatriot beat German Nicolas Kiefer 6-7, 6-3, 6-4.
Sixth seed Andy Roddick breezed into the third round with a 6-1, 6-4 win over fellow American Mardy Fish.
The top US player showed no signs of being rusty in his first game of the year on clay, polishing off the first set in 23 minutes.
Fish put up stiffer resistance at the start of the second, producing some thumping forehand winners before Roddick broke in the seventh game of the set.
Croatian wildcard Mario Ancic defeated Spain’s Feliciano Lopez 6-4, 6-4 and will meet fourth seed Nikolay Davydenko of Russia in the second round.
Carlos Moya, the 11th seeded 2004 champion, was turfed out in the first round by his Spanish compatriot Fernando Verdasco, 6-3, 6-4.
Australian Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the 10th seed, also made an early exit on his return from a knee injury, blowing three consecutive match points in a third-set tiebreak before going down 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 to Gilles Simon.
In the second round France’s Simon will face Italy’s Simone Bolelli, a surprise finalist at the Munich Open last weekend, who defeated Olivier Patience 6-0, 6-3.
Tuesday’s results (prefix number denotes seeding):
Second round: 1-Roger Federer (Switzerland) bt Guillermo Canas (Argentina) 6-3, 6-3; 6-Andy Roddick (US) beat Mardy Fish (US) 6-1, 6-4.
First round: Gilles Simon (France) bt 10-Jo-Wilfried Tsonga (France) 6-2, 4-6, 7-6 (8-6); Simone Bolelli (Italy) bt Olivier Patience (France) 6-0, 6-3; Fernando Verdasco (Spain) bt 11-Carlos Moya (Spain) 6-3, 6-4; Nicolas Lapentti (Ecuador) bt Filippo Volandri (Italy) 7-6 (8-6), 2-6, 6-2; Ivo Karlovic (Croatia) bt 15-Paul-Henri Mathieu (France) 7-6 (7-4), 6-2; 12-Fernando Gonzalez (Chile) bt Janko Tipsarevic (Serbia) 3-6, 7-6 (7-0), 7-6 (8-6); Mario Ancic (Croatia) bt Feliciano Lopez (Spain) 6-4, 6-4; Juan Carlos Ferrero (Spain) bt Nicolas Kiefer (Germany) 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, 6-4; Jose Acasuso (Argentina) bt Dmitry Tursunov (Russia) 6-4, 6-2; 14-Tommy Robredo (Spain) bt Juan Ignacio Chela (Argentina) 6-4, 6-1.
SERENA PREVAILS
BERLIN: Fifth seed Serena Williams brushed aside Francesca Schiavone 6-2, 6-3 in the second round of the German Open on Tuesday.
The American former world No 1, on course to meet top seeded Belgian Justine Henin in the quarter-finals, needed little more than an hour to beat the unseeded Italian on the clay at the Steffi Graf stadium.
An eight-time Grand Slam champion, Williams will meet either 11th seed Agnieszka Radwanska or German qualifier Angelika Bachmann in the next round.
Earlier, seventh seeded Russian Elena Dementieva took less than an hour to overcome Ukrainian Kateryna Bondarenko 6-1, 6-2 while Marion Bartoli, the eighth seed, breezed past the Czech Republic’s Lucie Safarova 6-0, 6-3.
Unseeded Russian Vera Dushevina upset Switzerland’s Patty Schnyder, beating the ninth seed 6-2, 6-3 in their first-round match.
Lucky loser Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan, who replaced the injured Amelie Mauresmo in the draw, made the most of her good fortune to beat another Frenchwoman, Aravane Rezai, 7-5, 7-5 in the first round.
Mauresmo pulled out of the $1.3 million claycourt event on Monday due to a rib injury caused by too much coughing.
Henin and last year’s winner Ana Ivanovic of Serbia were not in action until Wednesday.
Results:
Second round: 5-Serena Williams (US) bt Francesca Schiavone (Italy) 6-2, 6-3; 7-Elena Dementieva (Russia) bt Kateryna Bondarenko (Ukraine) 6-1, 6-2; 8-Marion Bartoli (France) bt Lucie Safarova (Czech Republic) 6-0, 6-3
First round: Anabel Medina (Spain) bt Tathiana Garbin (Italy) 3-6, 7-5, 2-2 – Garbin retired; Gisela Dulko (Argentina) bt 12-Nicole Vaidisova (Czech Republic) 4-6, 6-1, 6-2; Vera Dushevina (Russia) bt 9-Patty Schnyder (Switzerland) 6-2, 6-3; Peng Shuai (China) bt Jill Craybas (US) 7-6 (7-4), 5-7, 6-0; Victoria Azarenka (Belarus) bt Casey Dellacqua (Australia) 6-2, 6-2; Yan Zi (China) bt Martina Mueller (Germany) 6-2, 6-3; Maria Kirilenko (Russia) bt Elena Vesnina (Russia) 2-6 7-5 6-2; Akgul Amanmuradova (Uzbekistan) bt Aravane Rezai (France) 7-5, 7-5; Catalina Castano (Colombia) bt Galina Voskoboeva (Russia) 6-2, 6-2; Alisa Kleybanova (Russia) bt Olga Govortsova (Belarus) 6-0, 6-0.—Reuters
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