Chennai, India – Fifth-seeded Frenchman Benoit Paire moved on, while seventh-seeded Taiwanese Yen-Hsun Lu bowed out in the first round Tuesday at the ATP World Tour's season-opening Chennai Open.
Paire handled Italian Flavio Cipolla 6-3, 6-4, while German Matthias Bachinger upended Lu in 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 fashion at SDAT Tennis Stadium.
The Indian faithful were treated to a pair of wins when wild card Somdev Devvarman topped Czech Jan Hajek 6-3, 6-3 and qualifier Prakash Amritraj overcame France's Guillaume Rufin 6-7 (4-7), 6-2, 6-3.
Also on Tuesday, Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky beat Belgian qualifier Ruben Bemelmans, 7-6 (9-7), 7-6 (7-5); Israeli Dudi Sela doused American qualifier Rajeev Ram 6-4, 6-1; Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut bested Slovenian Blaz Kavcic 7-6 (8-6), 6-2; and German qualifier Cedrik-Marcel Stebe handled Dutchman Igor Sijsling 6-4, 6-4.
On Wednesday, last year's Chennai runner-up, second seed Janko Tipsarevic, will meet Frenchman Edouard Roger-Vasselin in a second-round affair. Tipsarevic lost to Canadian slugger Milos Raonic in last year's finale.
This event serves as a hardcourt tune-up for the Australian Open, which will begin in less than two weeks. The top seed this week is Czech Tomas Berdych, who will meet the 2009 Chennai runner-up Devvarman on Thursday.
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