Federer dazzles to gain Stepanek revenge

Rome, April 30: Roger Federer made short work of Czech Radek Stepanek on Thursday to book his place in the quarter-finals of the ATP Rome Masters claycourt event.

The world number two took just 1hr 8min to secure a comfortable 6-4, 6-1 victory that also brought the second seed revenge for a loss against Stepanek here in the last eight a year ago.

That time Federer struggled to cope with Stepanek's aggressive net play in a 7-6, 7-6 defeat but this time around the Swiss maestro was a transformed player.

He broke Stepanek in the 13th seed's opening service game when the Czech plopped a poor drop shot into the net.

Federer looked to be comfortably serving out the set despite only hitting 33 percent of first serves until he was surprisingly broken in the ninth game when he fired a forehand long.

That, however, seemed to focus the 13-time Grand Slam-winner, who romped through the next six games before a brief blip allowed Stepanek his only game of the second set.

Federer finished off the match with two aces and took an impressive four out of seven break-point opportunities.

The 27-year-old, a finalist here in 2003 and 2006, will face either France's eighth seed Gilles Simon or Mischa Zverev of Germany in the next round.

The Swiss is still looking for his first title of the season in his sixth tournament.