Davydenko and Ferrer enjoy easy wins in Hamburg

By Kevin Fylan

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Nikolay Davydenko and David Ferrer moved smartly into the third round of the Hamburg Masters on Tuesday, while Tommy Robredo came back from the brink to win a first-round thriller against Philipp Kohlschreiber.

Davydenko, the Russian fourth seed, helped himself to a 6-4 6-1 victory over Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic, while Spain's Ferrer, seeded fifth, was equally impressive in a 6-3 6-3 win over Ivo Minar of the Czech Republic.

In the only upset in the second round, Richard Gasquet's poor run continued as the French eighth seed lost 6-3 6-2 against the Italian Andreas Seppi.

Robredo, who had the best win of his career when he took the Hamburg title in 2006, lost the first set and was two points away from defeat when he fell a break down in the second-set tiebreak.

The Spaniard recovered, thanks to a couple of poor serves from German hope Kohlschreiber, and held his nerve at the end of the decider to take his third match point and win 2-6 7-6 6-3.

If that was the outstanding match, the best individual display on the red clay came from Davydenko, who served beautifully and took advantage of a stream of unforced errors from Ljubicic to seal an easy win in 84 minutes.

The world number four has one Masters Series title to his name already this season, after beating Nadal in the final on a hard court in Miami, and he has made a decent start to the claycourt season.

"Playing in Miami was much easier for me than playing on clay but maybe winning that tournament has helped mentally," Davydenko said at a news conference.