Madrid, Spain – Reigning champion Roger Federer was an easy second-round winner Tuesday at the $4.425 million Madrid Open.
After enjoying a bye into the second round and being idle since mid-March, the second-seeded former world No. 1 star brushed aside Czech veteran Radek Stepanek 6-3, 6-3 at this clay-court Masters 1000 French Open tune-up.
Federer beat Czech slugger Tomas Berdych in last year's Madrid finale and is a three-time overall champion here.
In some other second-round play on Day 3 at The Magic Box, Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver upended eighth-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 and 16th-seeded Frenchman and 2008 Madrid runner-up Gilles Simon got past fellow countryman Jeremy Chardy 6-4, 7-6 (7-5).
In some first-round action involving seeds, Argentine Juan Monaco took out ninth-seeded Serb Janko Tipsarevic 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, No. 13 hot German Tommy Haas drilled Italian Andreas Seppi 6-1, 6-2, and No. 15 Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka bested Romanian wild card Marius Copil 6-4, 6-4. The 35-year-old Haas is fresh off his title in Munich, while Wawrinka was last week's clay-court champion in Portugal, where he upset world No. 4 David Ferrer in the final.
Former top-five Spanish favorite Tommy Robredo reached the round of 32 with a 6-4, 6-2 victory over former Australian Open runner-up Marcos Baghdatis. Robredo will meet the surging Haas on Wednesday.
Additional opening-round wins came for Colombian qualifier Santiago Giraldo, Frenchman Benoit Paire, Russian Mikhail Youzhny, and Serb Viktor Troicki.
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