Sao Paulo, Brazil – Sixth seed Fabio Fognini came up a first-round loser Tuesday at the clay-court Brasil Open.
Argentine Guido Pella ousted the Italian Fognini 7-6 (7-6), 1-6, 6-1, while eighth-seeded Albert Ramos avoided an upset by handling fellow Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-3, 7-5.
Fifth-seeded Thomaz Bellucci, meanwhile, survived a battle with qualifier Guilherme Clezar to advance to the second round. The Sao Paulo resident prevailed in a final-set tiebreaker to score a 7-6 (7-4), 5-7, 7-6 (7-1) victory over his Brazilian countrymate in a two-hour, 36-minute marathon.
Down 5-4 in the third set, Bellucci twice held serve to force the tiebreak before dominating the deciding phase, winning the first six games to finally dispose of the 20-year-old Clezar.
Bellucci was the runner-up at this event in 2009.
Also on Day 2, Argentine Carlos Berlocq defeated Russian Andrey Kuznetsov 6-3, 6-4 and Italian Filippo Volandri outlasted Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (8-6). Volandri was last year's Sao Paulo runner-up to Nicolas Almagro.
The top seed here is former world No. 1 great Rafael Nadal, who was a shocking loser at the hands of Argentine Horacio Zeballos in Sunday's final in Vina Del Mar, Chile.
This week's second seed is the two-time reigning champion Almagro, who, in addition to beating Volandri in last year's Sao Paolo finale, also captured this event in Costa do Sauipe in 2008 and 2011.
The 2013 Brasil Open titlist will earn $82,300.
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