The British tennis star Andy Murray overcame a sluggish start to reach the third round of the Monte Carlo Masters with a 6-3 6-2 victory over Romania's Victor Hanescu on a bad day for French players.
Murray, who has already won three titles this year, next faces Croatian 14th seed Marin Cilic or the Italian Fabio Fognini, who beat the Czech Tomas Berdych, for a berth in the quarter-finals.
Earlier, the world number seven Gilles Simon produced an awful performance against German qualifier Andreas Beck, going down 7-5 6-1 in a second-round match.
And two other Frenchmen were sent packing after the first round.
The ninth seed Gael Monfils lost in straight sets to the Serb Janko Tipsarevic and Paul-Henri Mathieu lost in three to the 12th seed David Nalbandian of Argentina.
