Top pair cruise through

Roger Federer and Novak Djokovic enjoyed trouble-free passages to the third round of the Australian Open in Melbourne.

Federer had an easy 6-2 6-3 6-1 win over qualifier Evgeny Korolev, while defending champion Djokovic was a comfortable 7-5 6-1 6-3 winner against Jeremy Chardy.

The Swiss star's victory saw him move above Boris Becker to seventh on the list of the most open era grand slam wins.

But his third-round match-up against Marat Safin, who beat him on the way to the 2005 Australian Open title, was the real talking point after the Russian 26th seed defeated Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5 6-2 6-2.

"It's going to be a nice match for sure," said Federer.

"We have a history. We have played a few times. We've played in majors before and played some good matches before and in the Davis Cup as well.

"So we go way back. He, of course, is a former number one, the same for me, and a former grand slam champion, it's an intriguing match-up."

Eleventh seed David Ferrer and Marin Cilic, seeded 19th, will face each other in the next round after Ferrer overcame Dominik Hrbaty 6-2 6-2 6-1 and Cilic defeated Janko Tipsarevic 6-2 6-3 4-6 6-3.

Other seeds to progress were 21st seed Tommy Robredo, who had an easy 6-1 6-3 6-0 win against Viktor Troicki, and Tomas Berdych, seeded 20th, who beat Brian Dabul 6-1 6-1 6-3 and will now play Stanislas Wawrinka (15th seed) who defeated Australian Bryan Klein 6-3 6-4 6-4.

Mardy Fish also made it into the third round with a 6-4 6-1 7-5 win against Simone Bolelli.