PARIS — U.S. Open champion Juan Manuel del Potro ended Marat Safin’s career Wednesday, defeating the two-time Grand Slam title winner 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 in the second round of the Paris Masters.
The 29-year-old Safin, a three-time Paris Masters champion, played his last match in style, showing the Parisian crowd some terrific baseline winners, a fine touch at the net and strong first serves. But the Russian also made some horrendous unforced errors and threw his racket.
“I knew that I had not many chances to beat him,” Safin said following a small ceremony on center court. “But I played pretty well, had pretty close calls and had a chance.”
Novak Djokovic of Serbia advanced to the third round by beating Juan Monaco of Argentina 6-3, 7-5, and ninth-seeded Robin Soderling of Sweden kept alive his slim hopes of qualifying for the eight-man ATP World Tour Finals by defeating big-serving Ivo Karlovic of Croatia 6-4, 7-6 (6).
Safin, a former No. 1 player, won the 2000 U.S. Open and 2005 Australian Open.
He finished with 15 titles in his career, but he hasn’t won a tournament in four years. His best result this year was reaching the semifinals last month in St. Petersburg, Russia.
“Today I will put all my memories, all my wins and losses in a small box,” Safin said after receiving a special trophy. “Today a door is closed, hopefully another one will open.”
Del Potro, who will face either 10th-seeded Fernando Gonzalez or John Isner of the United States, congratulated Safin at the net while the audience gave the Russian a standing ovation.
Djokovic traded breaks with Monaco in the first set, and then broke again in the eighth game before serving it out. He led 2-0 in the second set but then lost five consecutive games. He saved a set point in the eighth game before tying it at 5-5 with a combination of drop shots and powerful groundstrokes.
The third-ranked Serb broke to lead 6-5 when Monaco sent a backhand long, and then closed it out on his first match point.
Djokovic, coming off a win over top-ranked Roger Federer in the Swiss Indoors final last week, will face either 16th-seeded Tommy Haas of Germany or Arnaud Clement of France.
Soderling will take on former champion Nikolay Davydenko in the third round.
Davydenko and Soderling are among five players in the running to secure the two remaining spots. The others are Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, Fernando Verdasco and Gonzalez.
Federer will launch his bid to win the Paris Masters for the first time later Wednesday in a second-round match against Julien Benneteau of France. Second-ranked Rafael Nadal will play Nicolas Almagro in an all-Spanish match.
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