(Sunrise, FL) – Three more top seeds made it through today at the BMWTC, joining No. 5 Janko Tipsarevic and No. 6 Sebastian Grosjean in the second round.

FERNANDO GONZALEZ (CHI) vs EVGENY KOROLEV (RUS)

World No. 12 and top seed Fernando Gonzalez opened with a definitive win over the 95-ranked Russian who beat him a couple of weeks ago in the round of sixteen at the Tennis Channel Open. The two have played twice – with Gonzalez taking him out in the first round of the Australian Open last year.

For his opponent, 20-year-old Evgeny Korolev, beating Gonzalez in Vegas was the most impressive win of his career. A small Russian contingent of fans cheered him on last night point by point (including former women’s star Anna Kournikova) but it wasn’t enough to win the war of the big forehands.

The first set was tight until the tiebreaker, which Gonzalez won 7-2. In the second set, Gonzalez amped up the firepower, with both players firing bullets off the forehand side. First serve percentage for Fernando Gonzales was a solid 72%, including seven aces. Meanwhile 40 unforced errors piled up for Korolev versus 29 for Gonzalez. Seven of Korolev’s errors were double faults. That statistic turned the match in Gonzalez’ favor, even though he had only 19 winners to Korolev’s 25.

Gonzalez says he’s here for one reason: he needs to play more matches before the Sony Ericsson Masters Series event later this month. In fact Gonzalez’s best result in Miami was in 2004, where he reached the semis, losing to Guillermo Coria. At Indian Wells this year, he received a bye in the first round, then went out to Croatian Mario Ancic in three sets.

“I came because I need to play matches and I didn’t want to practice for twelve more days, it’s too long,” Gonzalez says. “I played good tennis in Indian Wells but when I realize I have to play for twelve days without a match I get real crazy so this was a really good idea to play some more matches before Miami.”

Gonzalez is the highest ranked player to ever play in the BMWTC, but he doesn’t think of it strictly as a Challenger. “I think its one of the toughest, it’s like a tour event, I mean the points and the money is like a Challenger but the level is like a normal tour event.”

As to his recent loss to Korolev, the 28-year-old Chilean shrugs it off. “Tennis every day is different, and the conditions were different too. Las Vegas was dry weather and really fast and here it’s humid and it’s slower so I think that’s why, it’s different conditions and I hit better, I think.”

Gonzalez has a long history of beating top ten players, including a win over world No. 1 Roger Federer last year. He’s faced the Fed in finals three other times, including at the 2007 Australian Open, where he also beat No. 2 Rafael Nadal. Following that, he climbed to a career-high No. 5. Chili’s best player is the first from that country to finish in the top 10 in back-to-back seasons since Marcelo Rios in the late 90s. He’s looking forward to a return to the single digits.

“Just keep working and that’s it, it’s gonna come, I think I was a few years in the top ten so I feel happy to play tennis only, so I always enjoy it and try to win and that’s the way to do it. I say always, no players are retiring and there are many players coming up so it’s getting tougher and tougher.”

Gonzalez says he has benefited from advice from coach Larry Stefanki, who has tried to develop a more all-court game for him. “I was trying to improve the defensive game, try to go into the net, try to do more things because normally I tried to hit the ball and go for my shots all the time but now I’m learning to do many more things and that’s helped me a lot to my game. He helped me a lot, he changed my view, he has a different angle so that’s good for my tennis.”

With the summer Olympics coming up, Gonzalez is looking forward to trying for a repeat of one of the most significant days of his career, when he played a long 5-setter in singles, and followed that up by winning gold in doubles with partner Nicolas Massu.

“Absolutely, that was the longest day of my life on the court but also one of the happiest ones,” he says. “I played more than seven hours in one day but I still remember like it was yesterday, I will never forget that moment. We’re really excited because it’s an Olympic year and we’re going to try our best to do something like the last Olympics.”

Final score Wednesday night was Gonzalez winning over Korolev, 7-6(2) 6-4. His next opponent is Kristof Vliegen of Belgium, at 7pm on Thursday.

ANDREAS SEPPI (ITA) vs ARTEM SITAK (RUS)

First up on stadium court Wednesday, No. 4 seed Andreas Seppi took on Russian qualifier Artem Sitak. Since reaching the final here last year (losing to Gael Monfils), Seppi has moved up the ATP chart to No. 40, winning a career-high 22 matches in 2007. 22-year old Sitak is currently ranked 431 and has mostly played in Challenger and Futures events.

It was their first professional match, and with the windy conditions Italy’s No. 2 player (behind ATP No. 34 ranked Potito Starace, seeded 3rd) took nothing for granted. “I didn’t know how he plays, so today was also pretty tough because there was a lot of wind and to come back in a tournament where I played pretty well last year was pretty tough but I like to play here so I like to go on in this tournament. It’s one of the best challengers of the year and everyone wants to play some more matches before Miami.”

Seppi says he’s comfortable about where his game is these days, and looks to continue his charge up the rankings. “I’m confident, I won also my first Challenger this year in Bergamo [Italy], and had some good wins over Nadal and Hewitt also this past year so I’m happy with my game at this time. I have my best ranking now, top 40, so I hope to go to the top 30 this year. I think I have the game for this.”

Gusty winds exposed one part of Seppi’s game that he’s been working on. “My serve was not so good, there was also a lot of wind so it’s not easy to serve, especially the second serve. I tried to be strong from the baseline and I think that was the key to winning the game. I have to serve a little bit better, especially the second serve, but I think from the baseline I’m really happy with the game, everything needs to be a little bit more aggressive, maybe come in a little bit more to the net, so I think that’s the most things that I have to work on.”

Seppi won his first round match 7-5, 6-3 and faces the Dutchman Robin Haase in the next round.

JURGEN MELZER (AUT) vs. JARKKO NIEMINEN (FIN)

Jurgen Melzer and No. 2 seed Jarkko Nieminen are good friends off the court, and are even entered as doubles partners at the BMWTC. But when they met on stadium court this morning, it was all business. Nieminen has beaten Melzer every time they’ve played as pros – although Melzer reminds us that he did defeat his friend on his way to winning Wimbledon juniors a few years ago. The last time they played was in 2005 in Stuttgart, where Nieminen won a hard-fought three-setter.

“We went thru the juniors together,” Melzer says. “We are good friends, we spend a lot of time off the court the whole year so it’s always tough to play a friend, but he has beaten me three times, so it has been always close matches but this one I pulled off and I’m happy and I hope I can go far this year as well.”

Melzer admits that when you play and practice with a guy a lot, there aren’t many puzzles to solve during a match. “We have kind of a similar game, both lefties, both better backhands so we try to play to the weaker side and since we know each other so long it’s always gonna be close matches and, well I’m glad I pulled this one off.”

Melzer, currently ranked 85, has been as high as the 20s and 30s. His year was going well last year – a semi final showing at Sydney, and a final at the Tennis Channel Open in Las Vegas, where he lost to Lleyton Hewitt. But a wrist injury at Halle, Germany in June sidelined him for weeks, and cost him precious practice time. He withdrew from Wimbledon, snapping a streak of 20 consecutive Grand Slams played.

“It hurt my rankings a lot and it hurt my whole last season. I tore a tendon in my wrist, and well knowing now I should have taken time off immediately after. I tried to play with it, all the doctors said as long as you have not too much pain you can continue - so that’s what I did but I have never been pain free. So I probably lost a lot of matches not being 100 percent, because you can’t perform against the best only being 70-80 percent. So then I took my time off after French open, until the summer in the U.S., but still I was out for two and a half months and before that I didn’t really play a lot. I never practiced, because just playing matches and getting ready for the next match and resting my wrist, so it was a tough last year and I dropped my ranking to now 85 but if I play like I did today I’m gonna get it back. I don’t worry too much about the ranking, it’s more about the fact that my wrist is fine, my body is fine and I’m going to be back in the top 50 now.

I need my wrist a lot, playing a lot of volleys and trying to come to the net to get the hard shots at the net so, but right now I have no problems at all and that makes me happy on the court and I can practice now, and that’s the most important thing.”

In singles this year, Melzer’s best result was runner-up in Wroclaw, Poland. He’s played a lot of doubles too, and has had some good results with various partners.

“I have a lot of passion for playing doubles,” Melzer says. “I lost my standard partner because of this injury and now I’m like switching every week which is tough but I’m still ranked now top fifty and just playing seven, eight tournaments a year. I want to continue to play like this for the rest of the year, having different partners, being my own chief, choosing where I want to go but for the next year on, I’m going to have a partner for the whole year. I want to have somebody I can win tournaments with again, and going far in the slams like I had with Julian Knowles, and we won the U.S. open and it’s nice and I like being together on the court.”

His doubles partner for the BMWTC, No. 2 seed Jarkko Nieminen, is on a roll, reaching the final in Adelaide this year, then advancing to his third career Grand Slam quarter-final at the Australian Open, losing to Rafael Nadal. The Finnish left-hander ended 2007 in the top 30 for third straight season, highlighted by reaching his seventh career ATP final, and is now ranked 26. He also reached his best year-end doubles ranking of 46 last year. Melzer/Nieminen won their first round doubles match at Sunrise this year, as the No. 2 seeds.

Meanwhile, Melzer hopes he can grind through the tough draw to experience a little Sunrise “déjà vu”. Melzer’s first year here, and the first year of the tournament in 2004, he won his first career ATP event, a moment which still shines in his memory. “I’ve beaten great players - Todd Martin, Thomas Enquist in the finals, Igor Andreev, those are highly ranked players. In fact Andreev is, now,” Melzer says. “I like coming here, I like the family atmosphere. And also beating Jarkko Nieminen today was like a good win. It’s always nice to after you’ve lost to somebody a lot of times, you should beat him at the end so he doesn’t get into your head too much so next time we go on the court I’ll know why I beat him and I’ll have more confidence.” After all, friendship only goes so far.

Melzer’s next opponent is qualifier Yen-Hsun Lu of Chinese Tapei, first up on stadium court Thursday at noon.

NICOLAS MASSU (CHI) vs KEI NISHIKORI (JPN)

There are currently more than a few rankings points between Nicolas Massu, No. 102, and Kei Nishikori, No. 126. Massu is almost 30 years old, Nishikori is a tour newbie at 18. But the biggest difference is the serious buzz following the young Japanese player’s win at the International Series tournament at Delray Beach this year, beating world No. 12 James Blake in the final. Starting out with a ranking of 244, he had to qualify for that tournament – then proceeded to beat the tournament’s No. 3 and 5 seeds on his way to the big win. He is the first Japanese player to win an ATP title since Shuzo Matsuoka in 1992; and also the youngest player to win an ATP title since Lleyton Hewitt won Adelaide in 1998.

“I get so much confidence after the tournament,” the fresh-faced Nishikori says humbly, “Beat James Blake, he’s top 10 and I couldn’t believe it, but it was great tournament for me.”

Nishikori began playing tennis at a tender age. “I started when I was 5 years old and my mom and dad were playing tennis just for fun and I started just for fun but I’m a pro now. When I was 12 I won all the junior tournaments in Japan, and I think that was the turning point.”

He trains at Bollettieri Academy, where he practices daily with a group of other promising young guns, but none of them has broken out to his degree.

Nishikori’s ATP bio says his favorite surface is hard courts, but he tells us he actually prefers clay. Most people focus on his powerful forehand, but he says, “My forehand is my weapon but everybody tells me that my backhand’s better, more patient and I don’t miss the ball, and my serve is getting better.” He adds that his obvious instinct for court position comes naturally – it’s just a gift.

Last year Nishikori tried to qualify for the BMWTC, but didn’t make it. This year, he’s already got one good win under his belt. Still, the youngster says, even after his amazing experience at Delray, he gets butterflies before big matches. Against Massu today, he was up 6-1 at one point in the second set after winning the first – but had trouble closing it out.

“I wasn’t expecting so much before the match and I was nervous because he’s a top player,” Nishikori says, “But I don’t know, I get confidence within the match. At the end I get a little bit nervous, I miss a couple of easy balls.” He says the windy conditions are tough but “I was using wind well, just played well today. I’m practicing in Florida, and always it’s windy so I’m used to it.”

Nishikori says his big goal for this year is to crack the top 50. For now, he’ll have to settle for a wild card into Key Biscayne. “I need a couple of points to get in the main draw so I got to wait a couple of months,” he says. Who knows, maybe next year he won’t need the WC; at least that’s the prediction of lots of tennis experts who are watching his every stroke.

Meanwhile the veteran Chilean hasn’t won yet in 08, but he got to the quarters in Acapulco and Auckland. Last year Massu finished in the top 100 for a ninth consecutive season. Today, Massu seemed to be facing down the sport’s future in his loss to a big-hitting and charismatic teen star.

Nishikori next squares up against No. 6 seed Sebastian Grosjean, Thursday afternoon on stadium court.

POTITO STARACE (ITA) vs JUAN PABLO BRZEZICKI (ARG)

In the final evening match for Wednesday, No. 3 seed Potito Starace, Italy’s current best player, defeated Argentinian Juan Pablo Brzezicki, 6-3, 6-4.

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