Jo-Wilfried Tsonga’s serve was harder to manage than his hair in Paris today.

Defending BNP Paribas champion Tsonga delivered a dominant serving performance to cruise into the round of 16 and keep his hopes of qualifying for the season-ending ATP World Tour Finals alive for at least another day.

The 10th-seeded Frenchman won 28 of the 30 points played on his first serve and did not face a break point in a 6-1, 7-5 dismissal of Spain’s Albert Montanes in a match that lasted only 62 minutes.

Tsonga could face Davis Cup teammate Gilles Simon for a place in the quarterfinals if Simon beats Ivan Ljubicic.

There are two spots available in the eight-man field for the season-ending event, which begins on November 22nd in London’s O2 Arena and both 2008 ATP World Tour Final finalist Nikolay Davydenko and Australian Open semifinalist Fernando Verdasco took steps toward sealing those spots with victories today.

Davydenko destroyed Benjamin Becker, 6-2, 6-1, to set up a round of 16 meeting with either ninth-seeded Swede Robin Soderling or Ivo Karlovic. Soderling, Tsonga and Fernando Gonzalez, who faces big-serving American John Isner on Wednesday, are trying to overtake Davydenko and Verdasco and secure a spot in London.

"It's a good feeling," said Davydenko. "With everyone here, (Roger) Federer and (Novak) Djokovic, it's a very tough draw and it's not so easy for Tsonga or Soderling or Verdasco to reach the final and win the tournament."

Verdasco rallied for a 6-7(3), 6-4, 6-4 triumph over Italian Andreas Seppi. The seventh-seeded Spaniard set up a meeting with either 12th-seeded Croatian Marin Cilic, who cannot qualify for London, or Polish qualifier Lukasz Kubot.

"I need to win all the matches I can to qualify for myself and not wait to see how other players do," said Verdasco. "It was my big challenge for this year and this week is the last week. After this, everything will be decided. So I'm giving my best in the last week to try to do it."

In first-round action: three Frenchman — Arnaud Clement, David Guez and Julien Benneteau — advanced. Clement crushed Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 6-1,  Benneteau beat Philipp Petzschner, 4-6, 7-5, 6-3, Guez stopped Stanislas Wawrinka, 6-3, 6-4, Argentina's Juan Monaco edged Jeremy Chardy 7-6(6), 7-5 and Nicolas Almagro swept Marco Chiudinelli 6-2, 6-4.