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Top two through in SA Tennis Open


The top two seeds at the SA Tennis Open enjoyed victories in Tuesday, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and David Ferrer easing past unseeded opposition.

No.1 seed Tsonga from France needed little under an hour to take care of Brazilian Thiago Alves 6-4, 6-1, while in the bottom half second seed Ferrer dispatched his Israeli opponent, Dudi Sela, 6-2, 6-0.

Twenty-three-year-old Tsonga has started 2009 in fine style despite a quarter-final exit in Melbourne last week; he still has an 8-2-match record for the new season. Ferrer was equally impressive, dropping just nine points in the second set.

Other first round winners were seventh seed Kristof Vliegen, Czech Ivor Minar, Portuguese Frederico Gil, Swiss qualifier Marco Chiudinelli and Uzbekistans Denis Istomin.

The top names were not so successful at the ATP World Tour event in Zagreb as four seeds were ousted in round one.

Top seed Russian Igor Andreev played Croatian qualifier Ivan Dodig, who is ranked more than 400 places below, with Dodig comfortably dismantling Andreev 6-1, 6-4 to progress.

Other seeds to fall were fifth-seeded Austrian Jurgen Melzer, No.8 seed Simon Bolelli of Italy and another Italian, sixth seed Andreas Seppi.

There was better news for local boys Mario Ancic, the seventh seed, and third seed Ivo Karlovic, both winning their matches to ensure six Croatians progressed to the second round.

Defending champion Sergiy Stakhovsky from the Ukraine also got off to a winning start as the world No.82 clobbered nine aces past Slovakian qualifier and tour veteran Dominik Hrbaty on his way to victory.

Across the Atlantic at the clay court Movistar Open in Vina del Mar, Chile, seventh-seeded Argentine Agustin Calleri prevailed over local hope Nicolas Massu 7-6, 6-1 in round one.

A trio of Argentines were also successful: Brian Dabul, Maximo Gonzalez and Sebastian Decoud all won through to the second round.


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Tim Farthing, Tennishead Editorial Director & Owner, has been a huge tennis fan his whole life. He's a tennis journalist and entrepreneur as well as playing tennis to a national standard. He also helps manage his local club and volunteers for his local tennis organisation. He's a specialist in content about the administration of professional tennis and tennis coaching for all levels.