Belgian Malisse clinched a 7-6 (3), 6-2 in victory in the second round against sixth-seeded Jurgen Melzer of Austria, while Russian player Youzhny survived a scare from Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin by prevailing 7-5, 1-6, 6-2.

French player Florent Serra also entered the quarterfinals by edging past Kristof Vliegen of Belgium 7-5, 4-6, 7-6 (3).

Returning to defend his title after a long injury-forced absence, Malisse appeared to regain his rhythm as he held service throughout and effected two breaks that led to Melzer's elimination from the first week of the new season.

Malisse, whose ATP Tour ranking slumped to 112 after featuring in just two matches during the past 10 months, played an aggressive game that forced the 60th-ranked Melzer into committing errors.

"I'm very happy with my game today, I served well and followed up with good ground strokes," said Malisse.

"It was my plan to go out and play a lot more shots than in the previous round, which was my first outing after a very long time," he said.

Malisse clinched the first set through the tiebreaker after points with service for 12 games, but the second set saw the Belgian break his rival in the third and seventh games.

Last year, Malisse was sidelined by a wrist injury after winning the Chennai and Delray Beach early in the season. He returned for the U.S. Open, but was eliminated in the second round and then tore a ligament in his right knee that took away the remaining season.

"I couldn't do anything for six months due to my wrist injury. I was going to undergo surgery, but the injury started to heal," said Malisse. "I then tore a ligament after the U.S. Open and decided to regain fitness before resuming competitive tennis."

Malisse said he was expecting a tough contest against Youzhny, who reeled off seven games in succession to clinch the opening set after trailing 0-5 to Roger-Vasselin, and then produced some stunning winners in the decider third set.

"Mikhail's playing very well and showed his grit by bouncing back after trailing 0-5 in the first set," said Malisse.

Inconsistency marked World No. 19 Youzhny's game against 97th-ranked Roger-Vasselin, who seemed to be coasting toward an easy first-set win after breaking the fancied Russian's service in the second and fourth games.

Youzhny's dramatic recovery saw him claim seven straight games, six of them without conceding a point. But Roger-Vasselin raced away with the second set to set up the decider, in which Youzhny forced service breaks in the second and eighth games to secure his passage into the quarterfinals.

"I'm looking at some consistency in the next outing, my game was up and down today," Youzhny said.