Marat Safin just about held his temper in check as he edged past Ivan Ljubicic in the round two of the Paris Masters. The Russian, who won the Madrid Masters two weeks ago, unleashed a furious outburst at the umpire when he lost a tight first set in the tie-break.
Defeat looked on the cards when he immediately dropped serve in the second, but Safin recovered his nerve to come through 6-7 (1-7) 6-3 7-5.
Safin plays Jurgen Melzer next after the Austrian beat Tommy Robredo.
And the Russian revealed afterwards he was less than impressed with Italian umpire Romano Grillotti.
"He gave me a warning for saying something in Russian, when he cannot even understand what I am saying," said Safin.
"But all of a sudden he decided it was a bad word. This has no logic. How can an Italian explain to a Russian what he just said? I tried to explain this to him." Top seed Andy Roddick brushed aside Armenia's Sargis Sargsian 6-2 6-2 in just 51 minutes to cruise into the third round.
Roddick's serve was so impressive that Sargsian managed to win just four points against it in the second set.
The American will now play Max Mirnyi of Belarus, who beat 15th seeded Chilean Fernando Gonzalez 7-6 (10-8) 6-3.
"I couldn't ask for much more," said Roddick, who has not played since September. "I hit the ball pretty well.
He added: "I needed that break. I was fatigued mentally."
Spain's Feliciano Lopez found his form to beat French Open champion Gaston Gaudio.
After an edgy start to the match, Lopez began to attack the net in the final set and came through 7-5 3-6 6-1 against the seventh seed.
Lopez goes on to face last year's runner-up Andrei Pavel in the last 16.
Mikhail Youzhny beat 16th seed Jiri Novak 6-3 7-5 and he meets Tim Henman next.
The result may come as a relief to Henman, who lost to Novak in Switzerland last week and will play Youzhny for the first time. French hopeful Jo-Wilfrid Tsonga could not repeat Monday's superb win over Mario Ancic, going down 6-1 6-3 to Guillermo Canas.
On Court One, Radek Stepanek beat Victor Hanescu 6-4 6-1 to set up a clash with Vince Spadea, who saw off Nikolay Davydenko 7-6 (7-4) 6-0.
Cyril Saulnier gave the home crowd something to cheer with a 7-6 (7-4) 6-2 victory over Slovakian 12th seed Dominik Hrbaty.
MMIX
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I was fatigued mentally 