Gael Montfils leads charge of the seeds in Hamburg

Hamburg: France`s Gael Montfils led the way as the top seeds advanced to the third round of the ATP Hamburg clay-court tournament.

Top seed Monfils bounced back from his first round elimination in Stuttgart last week to brush aside Spanish qualifier Albert Ramos 6-4, 6-2 and set up a meeting with Czech Radek Stepanek, who ousted Italian 13th seed Andreas Seppi 6-1, 7-5. Second seeded Austrian Jurgen Melzer, last year`s finalist, needed three sets however to get past Spaniard Daniel Gimeno 6-3, 5-7, 6-1. Third seed Nicolas Almagro, a two-time quarter-finalist, beat lucky loser Lukas Rosol 6-4, 6-4 as German sixth seed Florian Mayer saw off Turkish qualifier Marsel Ilhan 6-4, 7-6 (7/5).The only seed to tumble on Wednesday was Serb Janko Tipsarevic, seeded ninth, who was crushed 6-2, 6-4 by Argentina`s Juan Monaco. Germany`s 168th-ranked Cedrik-Marcel Stebe, who ousted defending champion Andrey Golubev of Kazakhstan in the first round beat 11th seed Nikolai Davydenko of Russia 6-3, 7-6 (7/5) and will next play Spaniard Fernando Verdasco.Croatian 12th seed Marin Cilic battled past 187th-ranked German qualifier Bastian Knittel 6-3, 6-7 (4/7), 6-4 in three hours. Bureau Report