2nd Round action in Hamburg

Today was the first match for the "Big Three". Also Kiefer was facing Swiss n°2 Wawrinka, and former world n°1 Marat Safin was against Tomas Berdych, the 9th seed who took the place of Andy Roddick after his retirement. It was Berdych first match in the tournament.

In the first match of the day Marat Safin who qualified for the main draw was playing his 4th match in Hamburg this week against Tomas Berdych who was playing his first match on clay of the season. It was a tight match but with 3 break of serves for the Russian he was able to secure a straight set win in 1h30 7-5 6-4.

Federer was playing against Jarko Nieminen of Finland for the 9th time and he never lost a set to him. It was no exception today as he crushed to the victory in less than one hour 6-1 6-3.

Then local hero Nicolas Kiefer was playing against in-form player Swiss n°2 Stanislas Wawrinka. It was two similar sets were the deciding factor might have been the toss before the match as Kiefer served first and when leading 6-5 in each set the German was able to break the Swiss serve. And with a total of 4 break of serve he was able to get his first win against a top 10 opponent since last year Masters Series in Madrid when he beat the Chilean Fernando Gonzalez.

World n°2 Rafael Nadal was starting his 2008 Hamburg campaign against Italian Potito Starace. It was a very tight match and Starace played very well through ought the match. The Italian played very wisely the drop shot to put Nadal in trouble. But eventually Nadal was able to convert the big points and secure his wins in over 2 hours with a 6-4 7-6 victory.

In the last match of the day Novak Djokovic who recently won his first Masters Series on clay last week. He was playing against Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentine. He had absolutely no trouble to win his match in just over 1h 6-3 6-1.

In the other matches of the day Tsonga, Bolelli, Blake and Robredo fell respectively to Soderling, Monaco, Tipsarevic and Karlovic.