Novak Djokovic, untouchable to date in a season which has seen him rack up 27 wins for no losses, opened his Madrid Masters campaign on Wednesday with a 6-3, 6-4 second-round win over Kevin Anderson.
Top seed Rafael Nadal also made smooth progress to the third round with a 6-1, 6-3 win over Marcos Baghdatis.
Also going through to the third round were No.5 Robin Soderling who defeated Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 6-3 and No.7 Tomas Berdych who beat Marcel Granollers 6-4, 6-0.
“I don't think it's realistic to go without a defeat in the first four months of the season,” admitted the Serb ahead of the match.
On the women's side, China's Li Na defeated Czech Iveta Benesova 6-1, 6-4 to move into a third-round match-up against Italian Roberta Vinci.
Australian Open finalist Li has revitalised her tennis this week on the clay in Spain, winning her third match from eight played since losing the Melbourne final to Kim Clijsters in late January.
Li's next opponent, Vinci, is fresh from a title in Barcelona at the weekend and reinforced her current form with a second-round defeat of Russian Alisa Kleybanova 6-2, 6-2.
In the first of third-round matches, Czech 16th seed Petra Kvitova upset second seeded Russian Vera Zvonareva 6-1, 6-4 to earn a quarterfinal spot.
The results: Women: Third round: Petra Kvitova bt Vera Zvonareva 6-1, 6-4. Second round: Li Na bt Iveta Benesova 6-1, 6-4; Roberta Vinci bt Alisa Kleybanova 6-2, 6-2.
Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova bt Marion Bartoli 7-5, 6-1.
Men: Second round: Rafael Nadal bt Marcos Baghdatis 6-1, 6-3; Juan Martin del Potro bt Marin Cilic 6-3, 6-0; Robin Soderling bt Santiago Giraldo 6-3, 6-3; Novak Djokovic bt Kevin Anderson 6-3, 6-4; Tomas Berdych bt Marcel Granollers 6-4, 6-0; Michael Llodra bt Flavio Cipolla 6-4, 6-2; Thomaz Belluci bt Florian Mayer 6-7(5), 6-3, 3-0 retired; Xavier Malisse bt Yen-Hsun Lu 6-2, 6-2.
Juan Monaco bt Gael Monfils 6-2, 3-0 retired.; David Ferrer bt Adrian Mannarino 7-5, 0-6, 6-0; Sergiy Stakhovsky bt John Isner 7-5, 4-6, 7-6(3); Guillermo Garcia Lopez bt Thiemo de Bakker 6-2, 6-3.
