Hamburg, Germany (SportsNetwork.com) - Germans Tobias Kamke and Dustin Brown were among the first-round winners Monday at the Bet-at-Home Open.
Kamke, a Hamburg resident, notched a 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Finland's Jarkko Nieminen. It was just Kamke's sixth win in a difficult season that has featured six first-round exits in 10 previous events. He has not been past the second round in any tournament this year and will take on 13th-seeded Federico Delbonis in the second round.
Brown earned a 7-6 (7-5), 6-3 win over Spain's Pablo Carreno Busta. He avenged a first-round loss to Carreno Busta last week in Bastad and set up a second- round match with another Spaniard in ninth-seeded Fernando Verdasco.
The top seed for this clay-court event is David Ferrer. The Spaniard has a bye into the second round, where he will face Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin, a 6-2, 6-2 winner Monday against Turkish qualifier Marsel Ilhan.
Italy's Fabio Fognini is the defending champion. He is seeded second and also has a bye into the second round, as do each of the 16 seeded players. Fognini will open against Serbian qualifier Filip Krajinovic, who rallied for a 1-6, 7-5, 6-2 win over Germany's Jan-Lennard Struff.
Another former champion in the field is third-seeded Spaniard Tommy Robredo. He won the tournament in 2006 and will play a second-round match against countrymate Daniel Gimeno-Traver, a 6-2, 6-3 winner over Teymuraz Gabashvili of Russia.
Other winners Monday included Austria's Dominic Thiem, Spain's Pablo Andujar, France's Benoit Paire, Portuguese qualifier Gastao Elias and Serbia's Dusan Lajovic.
