French Open: Majestic Federer cruises into third round

Paris, May 29: Roger Federer eased into the third round of the French Open with an emphatic defeat of Oscar Otte.

The third seed was a class apart as he followed up a straight-sets win over Lorenzo Sonego by seeing off the 144-ranked Otte 6-4 6-3 6-4 on Wednesday.

Federer said he is relishing being an "outsider" in his first appearance at Roland Garros since 2015, yet he looked anything but that on Court Philippe-Chatrier.

The 20-time grand slam champion saved all four break points that Otte earned as he coasted through in an hour and 36 minutes, serving superbly and hitting 35 winners in a commanding performance.

Federer peppered Otte - playing in the second round of a major for the first time - with glorious groundstrokes as he set up a meeting with Casper Ruud.

Otte gave a good account of himself in a first set that had no break points until the clinical Federer fizzed a glorious return winner past the German, who then made a couple of errors to go a set down.

It was a similar story in the second set, with the Swiss master claiming the only break again to lead 5-3 before saving two break points as he made hard work of going two sets up.

Otte continued to struggle with his first serve and was unable to win another two break points as Federer frustrated him in a final set that he won with just the one break.