Cilic, Tsonga, Verdasco advance at Monte Carlo tennis

Cilic, Tsonga, Verdasco advance at Monte Carlo tennis
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Summary

Croatian fourth seed Marin Cilic flirted with danger on Tuesday against Russian Igor Andreev in his first clay court match of the season before prevailing 6-7 (4/7), 6-1, 6-4 in their second round clash. Former Australian Open finalist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga played to the crowd as the charismatic Frenchman finally made his main-draw debut in the principality, defeating Spaniard Nicolas Almagro 7-6 (7/5), 7-5 also in the second round.Tenth-ranked Tsonga came through in just over two hours, losing serve just once on the way to a match against either two-time champion Juan Carlos Ferrero or German Benjamin Becker. Spain's sixth seed Fernando Verdasco started with a win over France's Julien Benneteau 6-2, 6-1 while other home players came through. There were wins for Michael Llodra, who put out Italian Fabio Fognini 6-3, 6-3 and Florent Serra, a winner over Gallic compatriot Stephane Robert 7-6 (8/6), 3-6, 6-4. Miami finalist and tenth seed Tomas Berdych ended the hopes of fragile Frenchman Richard Gasquet 6-2, 6-0 with the loser still taking time to recover from his doping drama and successful court appeal of last season. Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka repeated his Casablanca title victory of last Sunday as he again beat Romanian Victor Hanescu 6-2, 6-4. Top-eight seeds benefit from first-round byes, with number one seed Novak Djokovic, five-time champion Rafael Nadal and Andy Murray starting on Wednesday. Djokovic, losing finalist a year ago to the mighty Spaniard, will start his week against Serra while Nadal plays Dutch hope Thiemo de Bakker, a winner over Argentine Eduardo Schwank - fined for not trying during a match last week - 6-3, 7-5. Murray, a 2009 semi-finalist against Nadal, will play German Philipp Kohlschreiber.