05 November 2004	Friday	21 Ramazan 1425

PARIS, Nov 4: Top seed Andy Roddick demolished Armenia's Sargis Sargsian 6-2 6-2 to ease into the Paris Masters third round on Wednesday.

The American world number two, heading the Parisian bill in the absence of top-ranked Roger Federer, needed just 51 minutes to brush aside his opponent, the world number 78.

Roddick's performance was the most impressive in the tournament so far, especially as Sargsian had in the previous round beaten Sweden's Thomas Johansson, fresh from his victory over Andre Agassi in the Stockholm Open final.

Quarterfinalist here in 2002 and semifinalist last year, Roddick is firmly on track to go one better in Paris this week.

In contrast, Marat Safin, champion in 2000 and 2002, had a shaky start to his campaign for a third Paris crown before beating Croatia's Ivan Ljubicic 6-7 6-3 7-5.

Both players were let down by their serve and neither appeared ready to take any risks in a tense first set but Ljubicic finally took the upper hand in a one-sided tiebreak, which he won 7-1.

The loss of the set unsettled Safin, who found himself 1-3 down before raising the tempo to take five games in succession and level at one set all.

The final set was like a replay of the first until Ljubicic's serve let him down and Safin broke him in the 11th game before finishing off his opponent with a service winner.

So does Gaston Gaudio.However, the Argentine had no reason to celebrate on his first trip to Paris since his French Open victory, losing 7-5 3-6 6-1 to Spaniard Feliciano Lopez on Wednesday.

September because of personal problems and with so little match play had to be content with taking the second set before bowing out in 101 minutes.

Gaudio was the first seed to exit the tournament.

In a later match Mikhail Youzhny, winner in St Petersburg last week, beat 16th seed Jiri Novak, who took the Swiss Indoors tournament in Basel on Sunday. The Russian, who won 6-3 7-5.

Results:

Max Mirnyi (Belarus) bt Fernando Gonzalez (Chile) 7-6 (10-8) 6-3; Andy Roddick (U.S.) bt Sargis Sargsian (Armenia) 6-2 6-2; Juergen Melzer (Austria) bt Tommy Robredo (Spain) 6-3 3-6 6-1; Marat Safin (Russia) bt Ivan Ljubicic (Croatia) 6-7 (1-7) 6-3 7-5; Nicolas Massu (Chile) bt Christophe Rochus (Belgium) 6-2 7-6 (7-4); Guillermo Canas (Argentina) bt Jo-Wilfrid Tsonga (France) 6-1 6-3; Feliciano Lopez (Spain) bt Gaston Gaudio (Argentina) 7-5 3-6 6-1; Cyril Saulnier (France) bt Dominik Hrbaty (Slovakia) 7-6 (7-4) 6-2; Radek Stepanek (Czech Republic) bt Victor Hanescu (Romania) 6-4 6-1; Mikhail Youzhny (Russia) bt Jiri Novak (Czech Republic) 6-3 7-5; Vincent Spadea (U.S.) bt Nikolay Davydenko (Russia) 7-6 (7-4) 6-0.-Agencies