Guillermo Garcia-Lopez of Spain rallied to beat Russian wild-card Evgeny Donskoy 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 on Monday in the first round of the St Petersburg Open.
The seventh-seeded Spaniard struggled with his serve early, dropping the first set and trailing 3-1 in the second, but his form picked up and he broke the 121st-ranked Donskoy twice to even the match at one set apiece.
Garcia Lopez broke decisively in the fourth game of the third set and finished the match by serving out to love.
In other first-round action, Italy’s Flavio Cipolla advanced with a 7-6 (7/4), 7-6 (8/6) win over qualifier Andrei Vasilevski of Belarus and Rajeev Ram of the US beat Matthias Bachinger of Germany 6-4, 6-4.
Ram broke Bachinger early in the first set, but fell 4-1 down in the second before winning five consecutive games.
Mikhail Youzhny, the 2004 champion and two-time runner-up, is the top-seeded player in the 18th edition of the tournament.
MOSELLE OPEN
AP, METZ, France
Veteran James Blake of the US beat French wild-card Albano Olivetti 6-2, 7-6 (7/4) on Monday, despite being aced 19 times in the first round of the Moselle Open.
Blake won 86 percent of his points on first serve and broke Olivetti three times.
He next faces fourth-seeded Florian Mayer of Germany, who he has defeated in all three of their matches.
The American lost his first six matches of the ATP World Tour season, but has improved to 8-12 overall.
The 20-year-old Olivetti, ranked 213th, was playing in only his fourth match on the ATP World Tour.
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