Doha, Qatar – Seeds Philipp Kohlschreiber and Viktor Troicki highlighted Monday's first-round winners at the season-opening Qatar Open, a $1.05 million Australian Open tune-up.
The third-seeded German Kohlschreiber topped Croat Ivan Dodig 7-6 (7-5), 6-1, while the sixth-seeded Serbian Troicki snuck past German Bjorn Phau 6-3, 3-6, 6-4 on the hardcourts at the Khalifa International Tennis Complex.
Former top-five star Nikolay Davydenko of Russia opened his year with a 6-2, 6-3 spanking of Romanian Victor Hanescu, while additional wins came for Slovenian Grega Zemlja and Italians Paolo Lorenzi and Simone Bolelli.
On Tuesday, first-round matches will come for top seeds David Ferrer and Richard Gasquet.
Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who is not defending his title this year, downed Gael Monfils in last year's all-French Doha finale.
The 2013 Aussie Open will commence January 14.
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