Valencia, Spain – Former top-five star Nikolay Davydenko seeded Gilles Simon in Monday's opening-round action at the $1.905 million Valencia Open.
Davydenko dismissed the former top-10 performer Simon 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 on the indoor hardcourts at Valencia's state-of-the-art City of Arts and Sciences.
Other Day-2 play saw Italian Fabio Fognini douse Spanish wild card Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-4, 6-3 and French qualifier Nicolas Mahut top Spain's Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.
Two-time champion David Ferrer beat Marcel Granollers in last year's popular all-Spanish finale here. Spaniards have won six of the last eight titles in Valencia, which was a clay-court event through 2008.
This week's top seeds are Ferrer and last week's Vienna titlist Jo-Wilfried Tsonga. Former U.S. Open champion Juan Martin del Potro is also in the field here. The sixth-seeded Argentine lost to the French Tonga in last week's marquee Vienna finale.
The 2011 Valencia titlist will collect $455,000.
