Attempting to maintain her status as Italy’s second-best player, top-seeded Flavia Pennetta beat wild-card Anastassia Grymalska 6-4, 6-1 in the opening round of the Palermo Open on Monday.
Francesca Schiavone is the top-ranked Italian at No. 8, Pennetta is No. 21 and Roberta Vinci is up to a career-best No. 23 this week after winning the Budapest Grand Prix on Sunday for her third title of the year.
Pennetta won this clay-court tournament in 2009 and is a two-time runner-up.
In other matches, sixth-seeded Tsvetana Pironkova of Bulgaria beat Anna Tatishvili of Georgia 6-2, 7-5 and Akgul Amanmuradova of Uzbekistan defeated Madalina Gojnea of Romania 7-6 (7/4), 6-2.
GASTEIN LADIES
AP, BAD GASTEIN, AUSTRIA
Third-seeded Lucie Hradecka lost to Sandra Zahlavova 7-5, 6-3 on Monday and No. 4 Iveta Benesova pulled out with a knee injury in the first round of the Gastein Ladies.
The 42nd-ranked Hradecka, who won the French Open doubles title last month, had eight double-faults, including one on set point in the first set.
In the only other first-round match of the day, Wimbledon mixed doubles champion Benesova trailed the 317th-ranked Nikola Hofmanova of Austria 7-5, 3-2 before withdrawing because of a right knee injury.
It was the first time the 20-year-old Hofmanova has reached the second round of a WTA event.
MERCEDES CUP
AP, STUTTGART, GERMANY
Eighth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain advanced to the second round of the Mercedes Cup by beating Radek Stepanek of the Czech Republic 6-1, 6-3 on Monday.
Sergiy Stakhovsky of Ukraine also advanced, rallying to defeat Jaroslav Pospisil of the Czech Republic 4-6, 6-2, 7-6 (7/5).
SWEDISH OPEN
AP, BASTAD, SWEDEN
A left thigh injury forced fifth-seeded Tommy Robredo of Spain to retire in his first-round match on Monday against Filippo Volandri in the Swedish Open.
The Italian won the first set 7-5 and the score was level at 5-5 in the second when the two-time Swedish Open champion called it quits.
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