Kunitsyn beats Ferrero at Barcelona Open
Tennis newsIgor Kunitsyn of Russia beat Juan Carlos Ferrero 7-5, 7-6 (3) Monday in the first round of the Barcelona Open.
The 38th-ranked Kunitsyn broke four times to eliminate the former top-ranked Spaniard, who won his first title since 2003 this month in Casablanca, Morocco.
All three seeded players in action Monday also advanced.
Victor Hanescu was leading 10th-seeded Nicolas Almagro 3-6, 7-6 (7), 2-2 but was forced to retire with a cramp. The 22nd-ranked Almagro saved two match points in the second set before taking the tiebreaker.
The Spaniard will next play Juan Ignacio Chela of Argentina, who beat Thomaz Bellucci 6-2, 3-6, 6-4.
Fifteenth-seeded Tomas Berdych advanced after Martin Vassallo Arguello pulled out while trailing 5-2 in the first set, and 12th-seeded Igor Andreev of Russia defeated Andreas Seppi of Italy 6-3, 3-6, 7-5. He will next play Alberto Martin of Spain, who beat Marc Gicquel of France 6-3, 6-4.
Christophe Rochus of Belgium, Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia, Jose Acasuso of Argentina, Santiago Ventura of Spain and Potito Starace of Italy also advanced Monday.
Top-ranked Rafael Nadal, who won his fifth straight Monte Carlo Masters title on Sunday, will begin his chase for a fifth straight Godo trophy on Wednesday against Frederico Gil of Portugal. Gil beat Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan 6-2, 6-1.
Tuesday, April 21st, 2009 at 8:15 pm and is filed under Tennis news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
