Swiss third seed Stanislas Wawrinka eased into the third round of the Estoril Open in Portugal on Wednesday recording a 7-6 (7-5) 6-1 win over Spaniard Ivan Navarro at a rain-hit Estadio Nacional.
The 22nd-ranked Wawrinka, seeded behind Juan Martin del Potro and Frenchman Richard Gasquet, needed one hour to get through the first set against a clay specialist ranked 232 and playing only his second ATP-level match of the season.
Gasquet, who was a 2007 finalist at the Estoril Open, enjoyed a trouble-free encounter in what was his first claycourt match of the campaign with a 6-1 6-1 rout of Italy’s Paolo Lorenzi.
Gasquet improved to 12-8 in 2012 after reaching four quarter-finals in the first two months of the year.
“It was a good result for me – I cannot complain,” he said.
“I’ve played a final here so I know about the conditions.
“The wind is not a problem for me. I don’t mind playing in it.
“I like to work with the wind and this was a good match to start.”
Wawrinka, twice a semi-finalist on clay this season and also a Monte Carlo Masters quarter-finalist, had a really tough battle with Navarro in the first set on a day of blowing rain squalls and wind which lowered temperatures and made conditions heavy underfoot.
Wawrinka went down a break, 2-4 in the first set, but pulled it straight back before winning a tiebreaker in which Navarro saved four set points.
In the second set, the 27-year-old Swiss ran away with the victory in less than 90 minutes with six aces against an opponent whose only victory over him came nine years ago at the entry Futures level.
In the women’s tournament, top seed Roberta Vinci of Italy dispatched Portuguese hope Maria Joao Koehler 6-2 6-0 but Italy’s Karin Knapp upset second seed Maria Kirilenko 1-6 6-1 7-5.
2005 winner Zheng Jie of China, the fifth seed, lost 6-4 6-1 to Kazak Galina Voskoboeva.
Sixth seed Kaia Kanepi of Estonia put out the last American in the field by defeating Vania King 6-3 6-4, while seventh-seeded Russian Nadia Petrova reached the quarter-finals as Australian Jarmila Gajdosova retired hurt after losing the opening set 7-6 (7-2).
The same fate befell eighth seed Polona Hercog as the Slovenian had to quit trailing 6-4 3-0 against Carla Suarez Navarro of Spain.