Denmark's Kristian Pless and Croatia's Ivo Karlovic put themselves in the paths of high-seeded stars with first-round wins here on Monday at the US$416,000 ATP SAP Open.
Pless defeated Ukranian Sergiy Stakhovsky 7-5, 6-1 to book a second-round date with either third seed Andy Murray of the UK or US player Kevin Kim.
Karlovic bounced Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 7-6 (9/7) to set up a second-round match against either US second seed James Blake or Russian Igor Kunitsyn.
Top seed Andy Roddick, who led the US squad to a Davis Cup victory on Sunday in the Czech Republic, was scheduled to play Canada's Frank Dencevic in his opening match yesterday in the hardcourt event.
Roddick won here in 2004 and 2005 but lost to Murray in last year's semi-finals.
Murray went on to capture his first ATP title at this event, downing Australian Lleyton Hewitt in the final.
No seeded players were in action on Monday. In a match involving a pair of US players, Sam Querrey overpowered Paul Goldstein, 6-2, 6-1 to set up a potential second-round matchup with Roddick.
Marat Safin is seeded fourth followed by US player Mardy Fish, a finalist here in 2004.
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