Paris, Nov 5 (IANS) Leading seeded players, including Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray, all made it easily through into the last 16 of men’s singles after their first show-ups at the Paris Masters here.
Federer, who just claimed his sixth title of the year and 88th of his career by beating Nadal in the Swiss indoors final in Basel last weekend, thrashed Italian Andreas Seppi 6-1, 6-1 in just 47 minutes on Wednesday, reports Xinhua.
“Of course, I like great battles, playing two, three, four, five hours. But 47 minutes is always very pleasant,” said the Swiss.
The 17-time Grand Slam champion won 92 percent of points on his first serve and saved four break points on his opening service game of the second, before sealing the victory with a sliced backhand drop.
“You need to focus a lot for the very short time you are on the court, not to make any mistakes. I’m very happy with this mental performance. I remember the first round in Basel, I also won 6-1, 6-2. I’m satisfied I’m able to do that,” Federer added.
Seppi has lost to Federer for 13 times and the only victory the Italian has against the 34-year-old star was in the Australian Open this year when Seppi knocked Federer out in the third round.
Nadal, seeded seventh, also advanced in straight sets, beating Czech qualifier Lukas Rosol 6-2, 6-2.
“For me, the big improvement and big confidence is when I am able to find solutions again,” said the Spaniard, who next plays the 11th seeded Kevin Anderson of South Africa after the latter rallied past Austrian Dominic Thiem 6-7(3), 7-6(4), 7-6(5).
Second seeded Murray defeated Croatia’s teenaged rising star Borna Coric 6-1, 6-2 to make an appointment with the 16th seed David Goffin of Belgium in the third round after the latter beat Dusan Lajovic of Serbia 6-2, 6-2.
Other leading seeds like Czech Republic’s No.5 Tomas Berdych, sixth seeded Japanese Kei Nishikori, No.9 seed and local favourite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, and his fellow Frenchman and No.10 seed Richard Gasquet also advanced into the next round.
Marin Cilic of Croatia, the No.12 seed, and No.15 Feliciano Lopez of Spain, however, crashed out of the event as the former was beaten 7-6(3), 7-6(2) by Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria and the latter lost to Viktor Troicki of Serbia 6-7 (7), 7-5, 6-4.
