Ferrer and Tsongo safely through

Fourth seed David Ferrer and home favourite Jo-Wilfried Tsonga were both straight-sets winners as they advanced to the third round of the French Open on Wednesday.

Ferrer, elevated into the top four seeds by Andy Murray's withdrawal, does not have anything like the same profile as those above him and found himself out on Court Two for his match against fellow Spaniard Albert Montanes.

Montanes won his first title for almost three years in Nice last week but proved no obstacle to Ferrer's hopes of reaching a first grand slam final, the 31-year-old winning 6-2 6-1 6-3.

Ferrer next meets another Spaniard, Feliciano Lopez, who defeated Portugal's Joao Sousa in four sets today.

Tsonga held two match points against Novak Djokovic in the quarter-finals last year before going on to lose in five sets and is the home nation's main hope 30 years after Yannick Noah won the title.

He had a tougher time against Jarkko Nieminen - who, 12 months ago, was the man at the other end of the court during Murray's back dramas - but came through 7-6 (8/6) 6-4 6-3.

Poor weather on Tuesday meant there were a number of first-round matches still to play.

Eighth seed Janko Tipsarevic was a 6-2 7-6 (7/4) 6-1 winner over Frenchman Nicolas Mahut while another home player, 24th seed Benoit Paire, finished off an entertaining four-set win over Marcos Baghdatis that had been called off last night.

Tenth seed Marin Cilic, 23rd seed Kevin Anderson and 25th seed Jeremy Chardy were among the second-round winners.