Tsonga downs Davydenko

Marseille - Defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France has beaten Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 (4), 7-6 (8) on Wednesday to reach the Open 13 quarter-finals.

The second-seeded Tsonga, who had 19 aces, improved to 4-2 in career head-to-heads against the Russian who reached a career-high ranking of third.

Davydenko saved one match point with a forehand pass down the line, but Tsonga clinched victory with the next when Davydenko's forehand hit the net.

Tsonga next plays either sixth-seeded Edouard Roger-Vasselin of France or Ukraine's Sergiy Stakhovsky.

Later, top-seeded Richard Gasquet of France was playing his second-round match against Slovenia's Blaz Kavcic.

In other first-round matches on Wednesday, there were wins for eighth-seeded Nicolas Mahut of France, Spain's Roberto Bautista Agut, Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff, Frenchman Michael Llodra and Ricardas Berankis of Lithuania.

Results from the third day of the ATP Marseille on Wednesday (x denotes seeding):

First round:

Roberto Bautista (ESP) bt Dustin Brown (GER) 7-5, 4-6, 6-3

Jan-Lennard Struff (GER) bt David Guez (FRA) 3-6, 6-1, 6-1

Michael Llodra (FRA) bt Luks Lacko (SVK) 6-3, 7-6 (7/2)