World No. 1 tennis player Roger of Switzerland has advanced to the third round of the Rome Masters tournament in Italy.
After receiving a bye into the second round, the top-seeded Federer won his opening match at the clay-court event, defeating Spain's Nicolas Almagro, 6-3, 6-4. In the only other second-round match Tuesday, Jose Acasuso of Argentina surprised eighth-seeded Croatian Ivan Ljubicic, 6-4, 6-3.
In first-round action involving seeded players, number nine James Blake of the United States beat Gael Monfils of France, 7-6, 6-3. No. 12 Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic, 13th-seeded Richard Gasquet of France and No. 15 Mikhail Youzhny of Russia all won.
But 11th-seeded Tommy Haas of Germany retired from his match with Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic due to a shoulder injury, and number 14 David Ferrer of Spain was upset (6-4, 6-1) by Igor Andreev of Russia.
Marat Safin of Russia had to overcome a first-set loss to beat American qualifier Amer Delic, 2-6, 6-3, 6-4, while Gaston Gaudio of Argentina knocked off Mardy Fish of the United States, 6-4, 6-4.
Also winning Tuesday were Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina, Italy's Filippo Volandri, Albert Montanes of Spain and Belgian Olivier Rochus.
Some information for this report provided by AP.