Two former Australian Open champions and World No. 1 players will face off in the third round after Swiss Roger Federer eased past Evgeny Korolev from Russia 6-2, 6-3, 6-1 and Russian Marat Safin defeated Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5, 6-2, 6-2?on Wednesday.
The second-seeded Federer took advantage of his 20-year-old opponent's 44 unforced errors to race to the win in just 87 minutes.
The three-time Australian Open champion is chasing his 14th Grand Slam title, which would tie him with Pete Sampras's record mark.
Federer holds a 9-2 lead in the head-to-head series against Safin, but the 28-year-old Russian won their sole previous meeting at the Australian Open, prevailing in a 9-7 fifth set in the 2005 semifinals.
Safin, a winner of 15 titles on the ATP World Tour tennis circuit, went on to defeat Lleyton Hewitt in the 2005 championship match but has gone titleless since.
Safin said: "I have nothing to worry about. I'm going to play my match. We know each other pretty well. He knows how to play against me and I know how to play against him."
"Unfortunately I didn't win a lot of matches against him, but I'm looking forward. It's another chance. I have nothing to lose. I'm going to go for it," he added.
Defending champion Novak Djokovic went a perfect 6 for 6 on his break point chances in his second round match to defeat Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 7-5, 6-1, 6-3 in one hour and 44 minutes.
The World No. 3 dropped serve for the first time in the match as he served for the win at 5-2, but broke back in the next game as Chardy netted a return on match point.
American Amer Delic earned a date with the Serbian after battling to a 1-6, 3-6, 6-3, 7-6(3), 9-7 win over 28th-seeded Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu.
Delic advances to the third round for the first time in four Melbourne appearances.
After being pushed to five sets in his opening match, Spaniard David Ferrer enjoyed a dominant 6-2, 6-2, 6-1 showing against Slovakian qualifier Dominik Hrbaty.
The No. 11 seed converted all six of his break point opportunities and won 95 percent of his first serve points to wrap up the match in 73 minutes.
World No. 12 Ferrer, a semi-finalist last week in Auckland, next faces a first career meeting with 20-year-old Marin Cilic who advanced with a 6-2, 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win over Serbian Janko Tipsarevic.
Cilic clinched his second ATP World Tour tennis title in the first week of the 2009 season at Chennai, and is currently ranked a career-high No. 20.
Both Ferrer and Cilic are looking to reach the fourth round in Melbourne for the second straight year.
Three other seeded players -- No. 15 Stanislas Wawrinka, No. 20 Tomas Berdych and No. 21 Tommy Robredo -- each advanced to the third round with straight-set victories.
Berdych, the top Czech tennis player, takes a 3-2 head-to-head record into his next match against Swiss No. 2 Wawrinka.
(Xinhua News Agency January 21, 2009)
