World number one Roger Federer shrugged off two rain interruptions before crushing Colombia’s Alejandro Falla 6-1, 6-4, 6-3 to reach the French Open third round on Wednesday and keep his Grand Slam dream on track.
The Swiss top seed, who now faces either Chilean 32nd seed Nicolas Massu or Max Mirnyi of Belarus, took just 86 minutes to wrap up victory against Falla, who looked every bit his 139 world-ranking.
The South American, who got into the main draw as a lucky loser, having been beaten in the final round of qualifying, never looked capable of knocking Federer out his confident stride.
He lost all of his three service games in the opening set which took just 20 minutes.
Falla, playing in his first tour-level tournament of the year, was ahead 3-2 in the second set before the rain came to send the players off court.
Seventy-five minutes later, they were back and Federer broke in the seventh game before going on to claim the set 6-4.
Federer was quickly into his stride, breaking his hapless 22-year-old, left-handed opponent in the first game of the third set.
Falla saved three match points in the ninth game but was unable to prevent Federer from moving a little bit closer to the one Grand Slam title he has yet to win. — AFP
