Federer continues title defense at Basel

Top-seeded Roger Federer continues his title defense on his home soil Thursday at the $1.2 million Davidoff Swiss Indoors.

The world No. 1, Federer will face Argentina's Juan Martin Del Potro , who advanced to the second round when American Michael Russell retired due to food poisoning during their first-round match.

Federer struggled to a 6-1, 3-6, 6-3 victory in his first-round match against Michael Berrer . The German earned his only two breaks of the match en route to a second-set victory, but Federer earned a key break to go ahead, 4-2, in the third set and secure the win. With his victory, Federer avoided losing two consecutive matches for the first time since May 2003. The 51-time tournament winner suffered a stunning three-set loss to unseeded David Nalbandian of Argentina in Sunday's final at Madrid.

Second seed Fernando Gonzalez of Chile will face Croatian Roko Karanusic in the first match of the day. It will be the first time these two have met in their careers.

Gonzalez, who advanced with a 7-6 (7-5), 6-4 victory over qualifier Jerome Haehnel of France, is looking for his second tournament title this season, having won at Beijing in September.

American James Blake , the fourth seed, disposed of Spaniard Oscar Hernandez, 6-3, 6-4, in Wednesday's first round and will take on hard-serving Ivo Karlovic of Croatia on Thursday.

Blake has not fared well here during his career, failing to make it out of the second round in his two previous appearances at Basel.

Fifth-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic will face local favorite Stanislas Wawrinka , a 7-6 (7-5), 6-2 winner over Nalbandian in the first round.

In Thursday's other matches involving seeded players, No. 6 Guillermo Canas of Argentina will face Finland's Jarkko Nieminen , while eighth seed Paul-Henri Mathieu of France takes on Russian Andrey Golubev.

In other matches, unseeded German Nicolas Kiefer faces Stefan Koubek , and Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis is pitted against Agustin Calleri of Argentina.