The top men's seeds continued to make trouble-free progress at the Australian Open as Roger Federer, Novak Djokovic and Nikolay Davydenko all secured comfortable straight-set wins. World No 1 Federer was at his efficient best against the 31st seed Albert Montanes as he needed just three breaks of serve, while not allowing a single break point on his own, to win 6-3 6-4 6-4. "I thought it was dominated from my side with my serve, which allowed me then to take chances on the return. (It was a) pretty straightforward match, really. I don't remember him having any breakpoints," said Federer. Third seed Djokovic could hardly have had an easier win in his career as an error-strewn performance from Uzbekistan's Denis Istomin, the world No 103, allowed the Serbian to take a 6-1 6-1 6-2 in one hour and 37 minutes. Djokovic is yet to face a seed in the tournament and will next play world No 86 Lukasz Kubot, who was given a walkover win against the 20th seed Mikhail Youzhny. The Russian was forced to pull out on the eve of the match with a wrist injury.
Youzhny's countryman Davydenko extended his winning run on the tour to 12 matches with an impressive 6-0 6-3 6-4 victory over 30th seed Juan Monaco. Davydenko will next play last year's semi-finalist and ninth seed Fernando Verdasco, who was also a beneficiary of a retirement against qualifier Stefan Koubek. The 33-year-old Austrian was trailing 6-1 when he withdrew due to illness. Spain's Nicolas Almagro reached the Australian Open fourth round for the first time with a 6-4 6-3 6-4 win against the Colombian Alejandro Falla. Almagro, the 26th seed, will play the winner of Saturday night's match between Tommy Haas and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. The other match on Saturday evening on Rod Laver Arena is between Lleyton Hewitt and Marcos Baghdatis in a replay of their marathon five-set match at Melbourne Park two years ago which finished at 4.30am ? the latest-ever finish at a grand slam. * PA Sport