Simon, Gasquet roll in Open Sud openers
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French favorites Gilles Simon and round winners at the Open Sud de France tennis tournament.
The second-seeded world No. 12 Simon subdued Italian Flavio Cipolla 6-3, 6-2, while a fourth-seeded Gasquet, ranked 16th in the world, grounded wild card and fading former world No. 3 Nikolay Davydenko of Russia 6-3, 6-4 on the indoor hardcourts at The Arena. Simon and Gasquet enjoyed byes into the second round here.
"He's not the No. 3 he was a few years ago, but he can still dazzle sometimes, and you can easily find yourself a break down against him," Gasquet said of Davydenko. "So it was important to hold my serve."
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Simon's quarterfinal opponent on Friday will be wild card and fellow Frenchman Guillaume Rufin, while Gasquet will face seventh-seeded German Philipp Kohlschreiber.
An upset came when Rufin smacked 16 aces and ousted fifth-seeded Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 7-6 (7-5), 6-3, while Kohlschreiber avoided an upset by handling France's Edouard Roger-Vasselin 6-4, 7-5 on Day 3.
In some second-round action on Thursday, top-seeded Czech slugger Tomas Berdych will take on French qualifier Florent Serra and third-seeded Frenchman Gael Monfils will battle American Michael Russell. Monfils titled here two years ago.
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The winner of this $518,000 tournament will collect $95,000.