Roger Federer, the defending men's champion, overcame a sloppy first set and two rain breaks to reach the French Open third round yesterday with a 7-6 (7-4), 6-2, 6-4 win over Colombia's Alejandro Falla. Federer, who is the top seed here, will tackle either Belgium's Olivier Rochus or German qualifier Julian Reister, the world 165 who had not won a match on the main tour until Roland Garros, for a place in the last 16.
Federer was not at his best in the first set and was broken in the 11th game by Falla, but the world No 1 hit back immediately to force a tie-break, which he won. From then on he never looked back, and he said: "A player like Falla needed the first set to have a chance of winning. "He had a good first set where I made too many errors, but he was pushing me at the start. I knew the danger, it was a very tight first set and I was a little lucky."
Stormy play interrupted play for much of the day, but other men's seeds to progress in straight sets were Robin Soderling, the fifth seed, and Marin Cilic, the No 10 seed, who beat Taylor Dent and Daniel Gimeno respectively. In the women's draw Venus Williams, the world No 2, made easy progress to the last 32 with a 6-2, 6-4 win over Spain's Arantxa Parra Santonja. France is the only grand slam that Williams, the runner-up to sister Serena in 2002, has yet to win.
She next plays Dominika Cibulkova, the Slovakian 26th seed, who made the semi-finals in 2009. "She played very well last year," said Williams. "But I will just try to execute my game plan and not worry a ton about what my opponent is doing." Cibulkova had to work to book her place in the last 32, coming from a set down to beat the American Varvara Lepchenko 4-6, 6-2, 6-0. Nadia Petrova, the two-time semi-finalist who is seeded 19th, beat Agnes Szavay of Hungary 6-1, 6-2. Flavia Pennetta, the No 14, defeated Roberta Vinci 6-1, 6-1. * Agencies
