Roger Federer began his latest quest for an elusive Internazionali d'Italia title with a straight-sets victory over Pablo Cuevas on Wednesday.

The 17-time grand slam champion has yet to lift the title in Roma despite reaching the final on three occasions, but he looked in confident mood as he overcame Cuevas 7-6 (7-3) 6-4.

A tight opening set saw Federer only fashion one opening on his opponent's serve - in the eighth game. He failed to take that and was forced to battle in the tie-break having lost the opening point.

The Swiss did just that, though, and went on to seal the match in 82 minutes thanks to the only break of the encounter in the fifth game of the second.

The second seed joins Andy Murray and Rafael Nadal in the next round after they both cruised through their opening matches in the Italian capital.

Murray extended his unbeaten run on clay to 10 matches with a 6-4 6-3 victory over Jeremy Chardy, the Briton saving two break points in the sixth before taking complete control.

Chardy could not handle Murray - who is looking for his third successive title on clay - in the second set and he wrapped up victory with a final break of serve.

Nadal - who was beaten by Murray in the Madrid Open final on Sunday - got back to winning ways with a comprehensive 6-2 6-0 triumph over Marsel Ilhan, the seven-time champion rarely troubled by the world number 38.

Fifth seed Kei Nishikori also had a straight-sets win, over Jiri Vesely, but fellow seed Grigor Dimitrov (10) was a surprise casualty, as home favourite Fabio Fognini prevailed 7-6 (11-9) 4-6 6-0.

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga joined Dimitrov in making an early exit when he was knocked out by David Goffin, while 12th seed Gilles Simon retired due to injury in his match with Dominic Thiem to hand the Austrian a place in round three.

Elsewhere, there were wins for Guillermo Garcia-Lopez over Alexandr Dolgopolov and John Isner against Lonardo Mayer, while Brazilian Thomaz Bellucci battled back to beat 14th seed Roberto Bautista Agut 1-6 6-1 6-4 and and Viktor Troicki ousted Feliciano Lopez.