St. Petersburg, Russia – Seventh seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez was a come-from-behind winner Monday at the St. Petersburg Open tennis event.
The Spanish Garcia-Lopez overcame Russian wild card Evgeny Donskoy 2-6, 6-4, 6-3 on the indoor hardcourts at SCC Peterburgsky.
Also in first-round play, Italian Flavio Cipolla beat Belarusian qualifier Andrei Vasilevski 7-6 (7-4), 7-6 (8-6) and American Rajeev Ram doused German Matthias Bachinger 6-4, 6-4.
This week's top seed is long-time Russian favorite Mikhail Youzhny, who titled here in 2004 and was the St. Petersburg runner-up in 2002 and 2010. Youzhny will meet Canadian Vasek Pospisil on Tuesday.
Croat Marin Cilic beat Serb Janko Tipsarevic in last year's finale, but neither player made the trip to northwestern Russia this year.
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