Home

Top seeds advance at SA Tennis Open

Wed, 02/03/2010 - 09:48 by shalini.bahadur

Johannesburg, South Africa -- The two top seeds, Gael Monfils and David Ferrer, cruised to opening round wins Tuesday at the $500,000 SA Tennis Open in Johannesburg.

Monfils, of France, manhandled Slovak Dominik Hrbaty 6-2, 6-1 in a quick 53-minute match, while the Spaniard Ferrer had few problems with Slovakia's Karol Beck 6-1, 7-5 at Montecasino.

With the win, Monfils will advance to face fellow Frenchman Josselin Ouanna, while Ferrer will move on to face Swedish qualifier Filip Prpic in the second round.

Elsewhere at the SA, No. 3 seed Feliciano Lopez of Spain hung on to defeat plucky qualifier Benjamin Balleret of Monaco 6-1, 6-7 (5-7), 6-3, while Jamaican Dustin Brown downed fourth-seeded Marco Chiudinelli of Switzerland 6-4, 3-6, 6-4.

Indian Somdev Devvarman bested No. 6 Belgian Xavier Malisse 6-4, 6-2, while No. 7 seed Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan handled Finn Jarkko Nieminen 6-3, 6-2.

Copyright 2010 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).

No votes yet