Roger Federer eased into the quarter-finals of the Davidoff Swiss Indoors in his home town of Basle on Wednesday.
The world No.1, who has won the title for the last three years, defeated Italy's Andreas Seppi 6-3 6-3 to extend his winning streak at the tournament to 17 matches.
Another home favourite, Stanislas Wawrinka, was given a stern test by a rejuvenated Ivan Ljubicic before eventually prevailing 6-7 (5-7) 6-3 6-4.
Ljubicic is back in the world's top 25 after winning in Lyon last week but, having battled for more than two hours, came up just short against the sixth seed.
Marin Cilic, the runner-up in Vienna last week, maintained his late challenge for a place at the ATP World Tour Finals in London later this month by reaching the second round.
The Croatian fourth seed defeated Philipp Petzschner 6-4 6-4 but seventh seed James Blake was ousted 7-6 (7-4) 6-7 (6-8) 6-4 by France's Jeremy Chardy.
Fifth seed Radek Stepanek was involved in the day's longest match, the Czech needing two hours and 20 minutes to see off Florent Serra 3-6 7-6 (7-1) 7-6 (7-1).
Horacio Zeballos reached his first main tour final at the St Petersburg Open last weekend but there will be no repeat this week after he was beaten 7-6 (7-3) 6-4 by Richard Gasquet.
Fernando Gonzalez's hopes of a place in London suffered a huge setback as the Chilean lost his first-round clash with John Isner.
The third seed, who is ranked 10th in the ATP race, was beaten 7-6 (7-3) 4-6 6-4 by the American in just under two hours.
In Spain, there were mixed fortunes for ATP World Tour Finals contenders Fernando Verdasco and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga at the Valencia Open.
Verdasco is currently occupying the last of the eight qualifying places for the prestigious end-of-season tournament in London later this month, which features the top players from 2009.
And the Spaniard had an easy time of things in his first-round match against Oscar Hernandez, losing only two games before his opponent retired with Verdasco leading 6-1 0-1.
It was a different story for Frenchman Tsonga, though, who faces a race to be fit for next week's Paris Masters, the final points-scoring event, after retiring in the third set of his match against Mikhail Youzhny with a left wrist injury.
Things began well enough for the third seed when he took the first set on a tie-break but he did not win another game and called it a day with Youzhny leading 6-7 (3-7) 6-0 3-0.
Gilles Simon, who is an outside bet to appear at the O2, kept his faint hopes alive with a hard-fought 6-4 4-6 6-3 victory over Tomas Berdych to become the first man to reach the quarter-finals.
Sixth seed Gael Monfils was a second-round casualty, though, the Frenchman going down 6-2 7-5 to Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.
In other first-round matches, Janko Tipsarevic beat Victor Hanescu 6-4 6-3 while Feliciano Lopez saw off qualifier Alberto Martin 7-5 6-3 in an all-Spanish encounter.