Davydenko, Verdasco close in on London

Russia's Nikolay Davydenko and Spain's Fernando Verdasco tightened their grips on the remaining places at the ATP World Tour Finals in London by reaching the third round of the Paris Masters on Tuesday.
Sixth seed Davydenko cruised past Germany's Benjamin Becker 6-2, 6-1 at the Bercy arena but seventh seed Verdasco was made to dig deep against Italian Andreas Seppi before eventually prevailing 6-7, 6-4, 6-4.
French defending champion Jo-Wilfried Tsonga remained in the hunt for a place at the November 22-28 event in the English capital, however, with a 6-1, 7-5 win over Spain's Albert Montanes.
Tsonga, who booked his place in last year's Tour finals by winning here, romped to the first set in just under 22 minutes.
He encountered stiffer resistance in the second before grabbing the decisive break in the 11th match when Montanes double-faulted and went on to seal a 62-minute victory with a forehand winner.
Tsonga is one of three players, alongside Robin Soderling and Fernando Gonzalez, who still have a chance of pipping Davydenko and Verdasco in the race to London but all three need to at least reach the Paris final to do so.
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 favourites to join them.
Verdasco's victory means that Czech Radek Stepanek and Croatia's Marin Cilic can no longer qualify for the season finale, but Cilic will have the chance to exact swift revenge on Verdasco if he comes through his second-round match against Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot.
Davydenko, meanwhile, will next face either ninth seed Soderling of Sweden or Croatia's Ivo Karlovic.
World number one Federer faces Frenchman Julien Benneteau, a 4-6, 7-5, 6-3 victor over Germany's Philipp Petzschner, while Nadal will take on his Spanish compatriot Nicolas Almagro, who defeated Swiss Marco Chiudinelli 6-2, 6-4.
French qualifier David Guez, the world number 179, will meet countryman Gael Monfils after shocking world number 21 Stanislas Wawrinka 6-3, 6-4 in their first-round encounter.
Federer and Nadal form part of a star-studded draw in the 2.75 million-euro final Masters tournament of the year, with injured American Andy Roddick the only absentee from the world top 15.