Federer, Nadal march on

Venus Williams moved on, Rafael Nadal came back and Marat Safin said goodbye at the US Open on Wednesday.Her left knee heavily wrapped, the third-seeded Venus defeated fellow American Bethanie Mattek-Sands 6-4, 6-2, in a much easier match than she had two nights earlier against Russian Vera Dushevina.No 3 Nadal, whose sore knees kept him out of Wimbledon, returned to Grand Slam play with a 6-2, 6-2, 6-3 win over Richard Gasquet, while Safin closed out his Grand Slam career, losing to Jurgen Melzer of Austria 1-6, 6-4, 6-3, 6-4.Nadal conceded his top ranking to Roger Federer, whose bid for a sixth consecutive US Open championship — and third Grand Slam title in a row this year — progressed with a 6-3, 7-5, 7-5 victory over Simon Greul of Germany. Next for Federer is a matchup against two-time major winner Lleyton Hewitt of Australia, who defeated Argentina’s Juan Ignacio Chela 6-3, 6-3, 6-4. Federer has won 13 matches in a row against Hewitt, including in the 2004 US Open final.The defending women’s champion, Serena Williams, was spectacularly good in eliminating 51st-ranked Melinda Czink of Hungary 6-1, 6-1. While Williams and Nadal keep playing, Safin’s Grand Slam career is over.It ends with two Grand Slam titles, a smaller number than many experts thought possible when he broke through by beating Pete Sampras in the 2000 US Open final. He leaves behind a lot of good memories. He was a fiery, emotional player in a sport that doesn’t have many — a player who estimated has broken more than 300 rackets in his career and also got fined for pulling his pants down once during a French Open match.Also exiting was two-time major champion Amelie Mauresmo, who fell 6-4, 6-0 to Aleksandra Wozniak of Canada. Mauresmo recently turned 30 and is also thinking about retirement, though she won’t commit to a decision. “The thing I don’t want to do is make the decision to stop and then after two, six, eight months think, it was not quite the time yet,” Mauresmo said. “Because then it’s too hard, I would say, probably to make a comeback as Kim is making now, given the age.” Kim Clijsters, who came back to the US Open after a long break with an easy win on Monday, played her second round and defeated 14th-seeded Marion Bartoli of France 5-7, 6-1, 6-2. Other seeded winners were men’s No 6 Juan Martin del Potro, No13 Gael Monfils, No 18 David Ferrer, and No 24 Juan Carlos Ferrero and, and women’s No 7 Vera Zvonareva, No 8 Victoria Azarenka, No 18 Li Na, No 22 Daniela Hantuchova and No 26 Francesca Schiavone. N. 10 Flavia Pennetta also won 6-0, 6-0 over Sania Mirza of India — the first double-bagel of this year’s tournament