Federer advances to third round in Paris Masters

Federer, who won back-to-back tournaments for the first time since July 2009 with wins in Stockholm and Basel, needed just 68 minutes to ease past the world No. 28 with a routine 6-4 6-4 victory.

Federer has never reached the final in Paris, and suffered a shock opening-round defeat to Julien Benneteau last year. But he made no mistake this year with a comfortable win with a single break in each set. An early break in the opening set put Federer in command, and he dominated the match from the baseline, forcing his opponet around the court.

The French crowd did their best to spur on the former world No. 7, but Federer raced to an early lead in the second and never looked back as he cruised into a third-round meeting with Radek Stepanek.The pair met at the quarter-final stage in Basel last week, where Federer won in straight sets. But the world No. 2 is not taking anything for granted.

"He has beaten me twice in the past," Federer told Sky Sports. "He can really be dangerous for me; he keeps coming in, he is unpredictable and you don't know how he's going to play. He's got a flat forehand which works well on this kind of surface so I guess I have got to be very disciplined and hopefully pull up another good match against him like I did last week.

Federer was joined in the third round by fourth seed Robin Soderling. The Swede followed the world No. 2 onto the court, and followed in his footsteps with a 6-4 6-0 win over another Frenchman, Gilles Simon. Soderling fired 11 aces as he stormed into the last-16 in a 63-minute encounter.

Source: espn.co.uk