(Agencies)
Updated: 2008-05-15 08:57

HAMBURG, Germany - Roger Federer began the defence of his Hamburg Masters title with an effortless 6-1 6-3 victory over Jarkko Nieminen on Wednesday, while Rafael Nadal battled to beat Italy's Potito Starace 6-4 7-6.

Roger Federer began the defence of his Hamburg Masters title with an effortless 6-1 6-3 victory over Jarkko Nieminen on Wednesday, while Rafael Nadal battled to beat Italy's Potito Starace 6-4 7-6. [Agencies]

The top two in the world were joined in the third round by the man fast coming up behind them, Novak Djokovic. The third seeded Serb was just as impressive as Federer in beating Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina 6-3 6-1 in the day's final match.

Federer, who beat Nadal in last year's final to win the Hamburg title for the fourth time, needed just 57 minutes to rack up his ninth straight-sets victory from nine meetings with Finn Nieminen and reach the third round at a stroll.

"I know I've had a lot of good results against him but he can cause problems so I'm very happy," Federer said at a news conference after a satisfying clay-court display.

Nadal had to work a lot harder to beat the unseeded Starace and was lucky to come through the second-set tiebreak 8-6.

Starace double faulted at set-point leading 6-5 in that tiebreak and the Italian immediately put a simple forehand into the net to gift the world number two a match-point.

That was enough for Nadal, who will next face Andy Murray after the British 15th seed won easily against Frenchman Gilles Simon, 6-3 6-3 out on court one.

"I'm not expected to win the match at all," said Murray, who will be celebrating his 21st birthday on Thursday. "But if I can perform as I did today I think I can give him a good game."

POSITIVE ATTITUDE

Nadal accepted he had not been at his best against Starace but was happy enough with his first match since losing to Juan Carlos Ferrero in Rome last week.

"I hadn't had time to practise because of the foot blister I had so this was not my best performance on clay," Nadal said. "I had a good attitude throughout, though. I fought all the way."

Marat Safin, the former world number one who had to come through qualifying, maintained his momentum to reach the third round with a 7-5 6-4 win over ninth seed Tomas Berdych.

That was one of several upsets on day three of the 2.27 million euro ($3.51 million) tournament.

American seventh seed James Blake fell to Serb Janko Tipsarevic 4-6 6-3 6-3 in two hours, while Croat Ivo Karlovic saw off 13th-seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo 3-6 6-2 7-6.

Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland, the beaten finalist in Rome last week, lost 7-5 7-5 to Germany's Nicolas Kiefer, while unseeded Swede Robin Soderling beat French 14th seed Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, the Australian Open runner-up, 6-2 7-5.