Roger Federer in action against Jarkko Nieminen at the Hamburg Masters on Wednesday. (Reuters)

Hamburg: Roger Federer began the defence of his Hamburg Masters title with an effortless 6-1, 6-3 victory over Jarkko Nieminen in the second round on Wednesday. Rafael Nadal came through a tougher than expected match against Italy’s Potito Starace, winning 6-4, 7-6.

The world No. 1 needed just 57 minutes to rack up his ninth straight-sets victory from nine meetings with the Finn, who, as usual, was outclassed by his Swiss opponent.

Nadal had to work a lot harder to beat the unseeded Starace and was lucky to come through the second-set tiebreak 8-6.

Starace double faulted at set-point leading 6-5 in that tiebreak and the Italian immediately put a simple forehand into the net to gift the world number two a match-point.

Marat Safin, a former world No. 1, maintained his momentum to reach the third round with a 7-5, 6-4 win over ninth seed Tomas Berdych.

American seventh seed James Blake fell to the Serb Janko Tipsarevic 4-6, 6-3, 6-3 in two hours, while the Croat Ivo Karlovic saw off 13th-seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo 3-6, 6-2, 7-6.

Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland, the beaten finalist in Rome last week, went down 5-7, 5-7 to Germany’s Nicolas Kiefer.

Leander Paes and Tommy Robredo held their nerves in the super-tie breaker to stun the third-seeded Israeli duo of Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram and book a quarter final berth.

The unseeded Indo-Spanish pair beat their formidable opponents 6-3, 4-6, 10-2 in a second round match.