Kei Nishikori in action at the Barcelona Open Top seed, Kei Nishikori, made a successful start to his Barcelona Open title defence with a...
Kei Nishikori in action at the Barcelona Open
Top seed, Kei Nishikori, made a successful start to his Barcelona Open title defence with a straight-sets victory over Teymuraz Gabashvili on Tuesday. The Japanese star emerged triumphant from the second-round encounter after seeing off his Russian opponent 6-3 6-4.
The other seeds to advance to
the third round were both Spaniards - seventh seed Roberto Bautista-Agut with a
6-3 6-4 win over Thomaz Bellucci of Brazil, and ninth seed Tommy Robredo, the
2004 champion who was a 6-3 6-2 victor against Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin.
Eight-time champion Rafael Nadal's first match of this year's
tournament will be a second-round clash with fellow Spaniard Nicolas Almagro,
whose first-round contest against Paolo Lorenzi came to a premature end when
the Italian retired after three games.
Also in round one on Tuesday, Albert Montanes set up a meeting
with fellow home favourite David Ferrer - the third seed - by beating
Lithuanian Ricardas Berankis 1-6 6-4 7-5, and Dominican Victor Estrella Burgos
defeated Dominic Thiem of Austria 6-3 7-6 (7/3) to progress to a meeting with
Croatia's fourth seed Marin Cilic.
Another Spaniard appearing in round two will be fifth seed
Feliciano Lopez, taking on Marsel Ilhan following the Turk's 7-6 (7/2) 3-6 6-1
victory against Great Britain's James Ward.
But Madrid-born 2010 champion Fernando Verdasco's participation
is over after he lost 7-6 (7/4) 6-3 to Russian qualifier Andrey Rublev.
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