Davydenko, Tsonga advance in Paris Masters
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Defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, sixth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko and Spaniard Fernando Verdasco won second-round matches at the Paris Masters on Tuesday to keep their hopes alive of qualifying for the eight-man ATP World Tour Finals.
Tsonga remained in the hunt for a place at the November 22-29 event in the English capital with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Spain's Albert Montanes.
Davydenko cruised past Germany's Benjamin Becker 6-2, 6-1 but seventh seed Verdasco was made to dig deep against Italian Andreas Seppi before eventually prevailing 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4.
Davydenko, who won the Paris Masters in 2006, needs to reach the semifinals to secure a London spot, while Tsonga must defend his title without facing Verdasco in the final to advance.
"I still feel I'm an outsider," said Tsonga, who won five straight games in the first set and went on to break in the 11th game of the second to seal the victory.
"I have nothing to lose, in fact. In this draw, my ranking is not the best and I haven't made the greatest results in the past weeks. I have everything to win and nothing to lose," he added.
Six of the world's top players have already secured their places and Davydenko and Verdasco, who currently occupy the last two qualifying spots, are the hot favorites to join them.
"I need to win all the matches I can to qualify for myself and not wait to see how other players do," said Verdasco.
"It was my big challenge for this year and this week is the last week. After this, everything will be decided. So I'm giving my best in the last week to try to do it."
Elsewhere, the 11th-seeded Simon delighted his home crowd by edging former finalist Ivan Ljubicic 6-3, 3-6, 7-6(4) despite injuring his knee in the sixth game of the decider.
Nicolas Almagro of Spain defeated Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland 6-2, 6-4 to advance to a second-round match against second-seeded Rafael Nadal.
