The phrase "advanced easily" is correct and usable in written English.
It can be used to describe a process or situation where progress is made without difficulty or obstacles.
Example: "The software was designed so that users could advanced easily through the various features without any confusion."
Alternatives: "progressed smoothly" or "moved forward effortlessly".
The upper reaches of the women's bracket advanced easily.
Williams advanced easily, and her 6-1, 6-2 victory was mundane in tennis terms.
In the Venice Cup, too, the American teams advanced easily and will meet in the semifinal.
The other seeded players, including sixth-seeded Cedric Pioline and ninth-seeded Lleyton Hewitt advanced easily.
Savon advanced easily, though he didn't look sharp in his 14-8 victony on points against Germany's Sebastian Kober.
Hingis advanced easily to a fourth-round match against Alexandra Stevenson, who defeated Magdalena Maleeva, 6-3, 7-5, in her match today.
Armenia will advance easily from the second semi-final (assuming Rivas avoids backstage conflict with Turkey, who also compete in that heat).
After Bryant's performance, many assumed Pujols would advance easily, but he got off to a slow start, swinging well but hitting line drives instead of elevated blasts.
The defending champion Roger Federer also advanced rather easily, reaching the semifinals with a 6-1, 6-3, 6-3 win over Stanislas Wawrinka in a mismatch that had the intensity of a practice session.
Re "A Boy's Life, Guided by the Voice of Cosmic Wonder" (March 25): Dennis Overbye writes: "When Clarke died, one of his few disappointments was that we had not yet heard from any extraterrestrial intelligence, although anybody within 50 light-years sufficiently advanced could easily tell we are here".
In one type of scenario, the Singularity hypothesis, some sufficiently advanced and easily modifiable machine intelligence (a "seed AI") applies its wits to create a smarter version of itself.
