Hamburg, Germany (Sports Network) - Nicolas Almagro, Juan Monaco and
Marin Cilic were a trio of first-round winners Tuesday at the $1.1 million
German Tennis Championships.
The top-seeded Almagro handled German Tobias Kamke 6-4, 6-1 in 73 minutes on
the red clay at Rothenbaum Tennis Arena.
Almagro was last week's runner-up in Bastad and lost to Frenchman Gilles Simon
in last year's Hamburg finale.
Next up for the Spaniard will be Russian former top-five star Nikolay
Davydenko.
The third-seeded Monaco got past German Cedrik-Marcel Stebe 6-4, 3-6, 7-5,
while a fourth-seeded Cilic handled Italian Flavio Cipolla 6-3, 6-4
The Argentine Monaco was a runner-up in Stuttgart here in Germany last week,
while Cilic is fresh off his title in Umag in his native Croatia.
In other action involving seeds on Day 2, German wild card Julian Reister
upended No. 5 Fernando Verdasco of Spain 6-2, 6-3; No. 6 Philipp Kohlschreiber
overcame fellow German Bjorn Phau 4-6, 6-2, 6-3; No. 7 German Florian Mayer
got past Argentine qualifier Horacio Zeballos 7-6 (9-7), 7-5; and Czech Lukas
Rosol doused No. 8 Viktor Troicki of Serbia 5-7, 6-3, 6-4. Rosol shocked the
great Rafael Nadal in a second-round match on Centre Court at Wimbledon last
month.
Meanwhile, long-time German crowd favorite Tommy Haas, a wild card this week,
drilled Slovak Martin Klizan 6-2, 6-1. Up next for Haas will be the reigning
Hamburg champ Simon on Wednesday.
Also on Tuesday, Albert Ramos topped fellow Spaniard Pablo Andujar 6-1, 6-4,
France's Jeremy Chardy handled Spaniard Albert Montanes 6-4, 6-2, and Italian
Fabio Fognini bested Turkish qualifier Marsel Ilhan 7-5, 6-2.
The 2012 Hamburg champion will collect $265,000.
The Sports Network