Kunitsyn beats Ferrero to advance
BARCELONA -- Spanish former world No. 1 Juan Carlos Ferrero lost 7-5, 7-6 (3) to Russian Igor Kunitsyn in the first round of the Barcelona Open on Monday.
Need the scores from any match played in today's tournaments? The 29-year-old Ferrero, who won his first title in five and a half years at this month's Casablanca Grand Prix, faced some powerful hitting from the Russian on the clay in the Catalan capital and was broken in the opening game.
After losing the first set, 2001 winner Ferrero rallied to take a 3-0 lead at the start of the second. But Kunitsyn hit back and took the tiebreak 7-3 with his fourth ace.
Nicolas Almagro, the Spanish 10th seed, lost the opening set in his match against Victor Hanescu but fought back to win the second and advanced when the Romanian retired injured with the score at 2-all in the third.
Russian 12th seed Igor Andreev beat Italy's Andreas Seppi 6-3, 3-6, 7-5 and 15th-seeded Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic went through against Martin Vassallo Arguello when the Argentine retired with the score at 5-2 in Berdych's favour.
World No. 1 Rafael Nadal, winner the past four years in Barcelona, has a bye into the second round and begins his title defense on Wednesday against Portugal's Frederico Gil, who beat Lu Yen-hsun of Taiwan 6-2 6-1.
Nadal became the first man to win the Monte Carlo Masters five times in a row when he beat Novak Djokovic in Sunday's final and is the favorite for a fifth consecutive French Open title when the clay-court Grand Slam starts in five weeks.
