Spaniard David Ferrer was made to battle hard before securing his place in the third round of the Barcelona Open.

The home favourite - who is looking to prevent fellow Spaniard Rafael Nadal from collecting his fifth straight title in Catalonia - needed two hours to see off the challenge of Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin 6-3 3-6 6-1.

He was joined in the last 16 by 12th seed Igor Andreev, who beat Alberto Martin 6-2 6-2 in today's only other second-round match.

The rest of the games were first-round encounters and all the seeds made progress except for the ever unpredictable Marat Safin.

The Russian former world number one, who was seeded 11th despite being a wildcard entry, crashed meekly to Juan Monaco, 6-4 6-1.

Ninth-seeded Radek Stepanek wobbled before seeing off Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-4 2-6 6-4, while volatile Swede Robin Soderling defeated Teimuraz Gabashvili 6-1 6-4.

Feliciano Lopez vanquished Jarkko Nieminen 6-2 6-1 and there were first-round victories elsewhere for Arnaud Clement, Mikhail Youzhny, Gaston Gaudio, Daniel Gimeno-Traver, Oscar Hernandez and Nicolas Lapentti.

In the day's final match, 13th seed Richard Gasquet bounced back from a slow start to defeat Jan Hernych of the Czech Republic 4-6 6-3 6-2.