Wilfried Tsonga and sixth-seeded Nikolay Davydenko won second-round matches at the Paris Masters Tuesday to keep their hopes alive of qualifying for next month's eight-man ATP World Tour Finals. Tsonga beat Albert Montanes of Spain 6-1, 7-5 and Davydenko downed Benjamin Becker of Germany 6-2, 6-1. Davydenko and Tsonga are among five players who can still qualify for the season-ending event in London. Fernando Verdasco, Robin Soderling and Fernando Gonzalez are also in the running to secure the two remaining spots. The 28-year-old Davydenko, who won the Paris Masters in 2006, needs to reach the semifinals to take a spot, while Tsonga must defend his title without facing Verdasco in the final to advance. Tsonga showed no signs of the wrist injury that forced him to retire in the first round of the Valencia Open last week. The eighth-seeded Frenchman won five straight games in the first set. He broke in the 11th game of the second and closed it out on his first match point. The seventh-seeded Verdasco rallied to beat Andreas Seppi of Italy for the sixth time in as many matches on the main tour with a 6-7 (3), 6-4, 6-4 win. The 25-year-old Spaniard closed out the match on his first match point with a service winner and eliminated two contenders from the race to the ATP World Tour Finals – Radek Stepanek and Marin Cilic. Verdasco, who had his foot bandaged in the third set, broke Seppi in the ninth game of the decider and served out the match. Verdasco will play in London later this month if he wins in Paris, but could qualify earlier depending on his rivals' results. Verdasco will next face either 12th-seeded Marin Cilic of Croatia or Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot. Davydenko won 71 percent of points on serve and had five aces against Becker. His next opponent will either be Soderling or Ivo Karlovic. Nicolas Almagro of Spain defeated Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland 6-2, 6-4 to advance to a second-round match against second-seeded Rafael Nadal. French qualifier David Guez, 179th in the rankings, defeated Stanislas Wawrinka 6-3, 6-4 to reach the second round, while Juan Monaco of Argentina broke Jeremy Chardy of France three times on his way to a 7-6 (6), 7-5 victory. Julien Benneteau rallied to defeat Philipp Petzschner of Germany 4-6, 7-5, 6-3. The Frenchman will next face top-ranked Roger Federer Wednesday. Agassi should give his titles back – Safin Former No. 1-ranked Marat Safin believes that Andre Agassi should give his tennis titles back after confessing he tested positive for a banned substance during his career and lied about it to the ATP. Safin, who will retire this month, said in an interview with L'Equipe newspaper Tuesday that Agassi should “give his titles, his money and his Grand Slam titles” back. “I'm not defending the ATP, but what he said put it in a delicate position,” Safin said. “The ATP allowed him to win a lot of tournaments, a lot of money. It kept his secret. Why does he need to be so cruel with it?” Agassi, who retired in 2006, won 60 titles, including eight Grand Slams, during his career. He recently told AP that he had to speak about his lies because he couldn't live with it anymore. “If he is as fair play as he says he is, he has to go to the end,” Safin said. “You know, the ATP has a bank account and he can give the money back if he wants.” Safin, who will retire after this week's Paris Masters, won the 2000 US Open and 2005 Australian Open. The 29-year-old Russian said he isn't going to write his autobiography when his career will be over. “Me, I don't need money” “The question is: Why did he do this? What is done is done. Does he hope to sell more books? It's absolutely stupid.”
