Garcia-Lopez, Giraldo advance at rain-plagued Mercedes Cup

Published February 05, 2015

Stuttgart, Germany (SportsNetwork.com) - Seeded players Guillermo Garcia- Lopez and Santiago Giraldo were among the first-round winners on another rainy day at the Mercedes Cup tennis event.

The sixth-seeded Spaniard Garcia-Lopez snuck past Italian qualifier Marco Cecchinato 7-5, 1-6, 7-5, while the seventh-seeded Colombian Giraldo grounded Croatian qualifier Mate Delic 6-4, 6-2 at Tennis Club Weissenhof.

Rain delayed the start of Wednesday's action after wet weather wiped out all of Tuesday's schedule at this clay court tournament.

Meanwhile, Czech slugger Lukas Rosol edged out German wild card Alexander Zverev 7-6 (9-7), 7-6 (11-9), Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver topped German Peter Gojowczyk 7-5, 6-3 and German Benjamin Becker overcame Frenchman Benoit Paire 3-6, 6-2, 6-2 on Day 3.

Additional opening-round wins came for Irish lucky loser Louk Sorensen, Swiss qualifier Yann Marti and Russian qualifier Philip Davydenko.

The top seeds in Stuttgart are reigning champion Fabio Fognini and Russian 2002 Stuttgart titlist Mikhail Youzhny, both of whom received byes into the second round and will see second-round action on Thursday.

Fognini defeated Philipp Kohlschreiber, who had his first-round match pushed back here once again on Wednesday, in last year's finale.

The 2014 Stuttgart champion will earn $105,000.

URL

https://www.foxnews.com/sports/garcia-lopez-giraldo-advance-at-rain-plagued-mercedes-cup