Berdych makes Paris Masters third round

PARIS, Nov. 9 (UPI) -- Fifth-seeded Tomas Berdych and No. 6-seeded Fernando Verdasco were second-round winners Tuesday at the BNP Paribas Masters tennis tournament in Paris.

Berdych, finishing up Tuesday's 10-match schedule, topped Florent Serra 6-3, 6-1 in 47 minutes. Berdych converted four of five break-point chances and lost only one point over eight service games.

Verdasco was a 6-3, 3-6, 6-0 winner over Arnaud Clement. He took 70 percent of the points in the third set in earning a third-round shot at 12th-seeded Gael Monfils.

Monfils staged a big comeback in beating Benjamin Becker 7-6 (7-4), 6-4. Becker jumped out to a 5-1 lead and was serving for the first set before Monfils won five consecutive games to get back in the match.

A pair of seeded players failed to advance to the third round Wednesday. Radek Stepanek ousted 14th-seeded Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (7-3), 6-4 and Ernests Gulbis was up 6-4, 3-0 when ninth-seeded Mikhail Youzhny was unable to continue because of a back injury.

The first round was completed with five matches. David Nalbandian got past Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-1; Sergiy Stakhovsky swept past Illya Marchenko 6-2, 6-2; Gilles Simon escaped Andrey Golubev 3-6, 6-4, 6-3; Thomaz Bellucci beat Philipp Kohlschreiber 7-6 (7-5), 5-7, 6-3; and Juan Monaco defeated Sam Querrey 7-6 (9-7), 6-2.