Canas wins first round in Barcelona

Spaniard Rafael Nadal returns the ball to his Swiss opponent Roger Federer during their Monte Carlo ATP Masters Series tournament tennis final match on Sunday in Monaco. Nadal won 7-5, 7-5. PHOTO: AFP

Argentine Guillermo Canas, still rebuilding after a left wrist injury, opened his Barcelona Open campaign on Monday with a 6-1, 6-4 first-round win over unseeded Spaniard Oscar Hernandez.

Ninth seed Canas, the runner-up to Rafael Nadal last year, cruised through the first set and kept his concentration in the second to see off Hernandez, ranked 72.

Having missed the Australian Open because of injury, Canas returned to the tour in Acapulco in late February and reached the semi-finals of the ATP event in Las Vegas.

The 30-year-old, now ranked 31, will play either Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili or his compatriot Guillermo Coria, the former French Open runner-up who was granted a wildcard.

Croatian Mario Ancic, himself in the early stages of a comeback from illness and injury, crushed German Mischa Zverev 6-1, 6-0 to set up a second-round meeting with seventh seed Andy Murray of Britain.

Ancic, who was ranked in the top 10 in 2006, missed six months of last year because of glandular fever, but has climbed to the verge of the world’s top 50 thanks to a run of form that included a final appearance in Marseille in February, where he lost to Murray.

“I think he was struggling a little bit on the clay,” Ancic said of Zverev.

“I was happy that I played solid from the first to the last point. It’s never easy when you win the first set so easy but I played well, served well and didn’t let anything slip through my hands. I’m still looking for my game a little bit but hopefully it [the Murray match] is going to be a good battle,” he said.

Spanish 13th seed Fernando Verdasco was a first-round casualty, going down 6-3, 6-4 to Nicolas Lapentti of Ecuador.

Another Argentine, Juan Ignacio Chela, a late replacement for former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero, who pulled out on the eve of the event with a groin injury, rallied past Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-7 6-4 6-2.

Russian Dmitry Tursunov, seeded 15, won his first match on clay since last year’s French Open when he ousted big-serving South African Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-3, while Dutchman Robin Haase beat Max Mirnyi of Belarus 6-2, 6-2 and now plays sixth seed Tommy Robredo.

Top seed Nadal begins his bid for a fourth successive Barcelona title today against the winner of the first-round match between Italian Potito Starace and Australian Peter Luczak.

Meanwhile, king of the clay court artists Nadal will be feeling good about his game as he headlines the Barcelona Open following an historic fourth straight Monte Carlo title taken at the expense of Roger Federer.

“I lost easy in Australia [semi-finals], Indian Wells [semi-finals] and Miami [final against Nikolay Davydenko],” said Nadal, who has won 98 of his last 99 matches on clay.

“But when you are playing well, you feel you can win a tournament. Playing a bad match in the last round leaves you with a bad feeling going into the next event,” he said.

Nadal, who beat rival Roger Federer for the third consecutive year in the Monte Carlo title match — won’t be having that problem as he awaits a second round opponent from Italian Potito Starace and Pete Luczak.

The Warsaw-born Luczak may be an Aussie, but that doesn’t preclude him from having a handy game on the dirt, having won four of his last five this month on the surface.

Nadal will be in demand on and off the court this week in the Catalan capital, with a Monday sponsor appearance already ticked off the list of his mandatory sponsor activities.

As in Monaco, the world No. 2 is aiming for more record-setting, hoping to lift his fourth straight at the Real club.

Number 15 Russian Dmitry Tursunov became the first seed to advance, defeating South African Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-3 while Ecuador’s Nicolas Lapentti scored an upset as he beat Fernando Verdasco, 13th, with a 6-3, 6-4 scoreline.

British wildcard Andy Murray’s second-round opponent will be a rejuvenated Mario Ancic, who crushed Russian Mihail Zverev 6-1, 6-0. Ancic leads Murray 2-1 in their meetings, taking the last victory in march in the Miami second round.

“We’ve had some tough matches,” said the Croatian, who recovered last year from glandular fever which kept him out of action for six months.

Murray won in February when he faced Ancic in the Marseille final. As usual, the Barcelona field is packed with locals, with 10 Spaniards playing first-round matches.

Unknown number 237 Gabriel Trujillo-Soler booked the first Iberian victory, reaching the second round over hard-luck Austrian Werner Eschauer 6-4, 4-6, 6-2.

Eschauer has not won an ATP-level match since Jan. 1, suffering eight losses at the senior level.