Davydenko heads to Malaysian Open quarters

Top-seeded Nikolay Davydenko and No. 3-seed Robin Soderling each won Wednesday and advanced to the third round of the $847,750 Malaysian Open.

Davydenko took out wild-card entrant Taylor Dent 6-3, 7-6 (7-4) with a very steady performance. Dent forced 13 break-point situations but Davydenko successfully fought off all but one of them.

Soderling qualified for the quarterfinals with a 6-1, 6-1 romp over Brendan Evans. Soderling had Evans on the defensive throughout the 57-minute match, ending up with five breaks in seven games.

Also winning in second-round play was Mikhail Youzhny, who beat Marcos Baghdatis 6-2, 6-3.

In first-round matches Wednesday, fifth-seeded Gael Monfils defeated Denis Istomin 7-6 (7-3), 7-6 (7-2); Simon Greul topped Christophe Rochus 6-4, 3-6, 6-2; and Richard Gasquet took out Victor Crivoi 6-1, 6-2.

Monfils is coming off a title win Sunday in France and didn’t arrive in Malaysia until early Wednesday.