Murray off to solid start

Paris - Andy Murray showed no ill-effects from the injury that forced him to withdraw from the Swiss Indoors as he breezed into the third round at the Paris Masters here on Wednesday.

The world No 3, who won three consecutive tournaments in Asia last month, had to pull out of the Basel tournament last week with a buttock muscle strain but he cruised past France's Jeremy Chardy 6-2, 6-4 at Bercy Arena.

Having been granted a bye in the first round, Murray now finds his route to the quarter-finals barred by No 13 seed Andy Roddick.

Murray has a 7-3 career record against the American, and prevailed in straight sets when they met on the grass in the semi-finals at Queen's Club in June this year.

Spanish fourth seed David Ferrer took his place in the third round with a 6-4, 6-4 defeat of Frenchman Nicolas Mahut.

Ferrer, who has already booked a berth at the WTA Tour Finals in London later this month, will face either Ukrainian 14th seed Alexandr Dolgopolov or Germany's Philipp Kohlschreiber for a place in the last eight.

Serbian 11th seed Janko Tipsarevic stormed into round three by thrashing American Alex Bogomolov Jr. 6-1, 6-0 to set up a clash with Czech fifth seed Tomas Berdych.

World No 1 Novak Djokovic, the 2009 champion, is due to begin his campaign against Croatia's Ivan Dodig later, despite doubts about his participation due to the recurrence of a shoulder injury.

Should he fail to make it onto the court, the Serbian stands to lose $1.6 million in ATP bonus pool money, having also had to pull out of the Masters event in Shanghai last month.

Third seed Roger Federer, who has never gone beyond the last four at the Paris Masters, faces Adrian Mannarino of France later on Wednesday.

Latest results from the third day at the ATP Paris Masters on Wednesday (x denotes seeding):

Singles

Second Round

David Ferrer (ESP x4) bt Nicolas Mahut (FRA) 6-4, 6-4
Janko Tipsarevic (SRB x11) bt Alex Bogomolov Jr. (USA) 6-1, 6-0
Viktor Troicki (SRB x15) bt Sergiy Stakhovsky (UKR) 6-4, 6-4
Andy Murray (GBR x2) bt Jeremy Chardy (FRA) 6-2, 6-4
Oleksandr Dolgopolov Jr. (UKR x14) bt Philipp Kohlschreiber (GER) 6-3, 7-6 (8/6)