Bangkok, Thailand – Fifth-seeded Fernando Verdasco and promising Aussie Bernard Tomic were among Tuesday's first-round winners at the Thailand Open tennis event.
The Spanish left-hander Verdasco fought back to beat Japanese Tatsuma Ito 3-6, 6-0, 6-2 in 2 hours, 3 minutes, while the eighth-seeded Tomic trounced Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-0, 6-2 in 71 minutes on the hardcourts at Impact Arena. Garcia-Lopez captured the Bangkok title two years ago.
Verdasco's second-round opponent will be last year's Bangkok runner-up Donald Young.
In other opening-round action involving seeds, sixth-seeded Serb Viktor Troicki overcame Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky 6-7 (4-7), 7-5, 6-3 and No. 7 Finn Jarkko Nieminen was leading Japan's Yuichi Sugita 6-1 when the qualifier retired. Troicki was a runner-up here in 2009, while Nieminen was a Bangkok finalist in 2010.
Additional first-round wins came for Bulgarian Grigor Dimitrov, Israeli Dudi Sela, Japanese qualifier Hiroki Moriya and the left-handed American Young, who fought back to beat Taiwan's Yen-Hsun Lu 5-7, 6-2, 7-5. Young lost to British star Andy Murray in last year's Thailand Open finale.
In second-round action on Wednesday, top-seeded Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia will take on the little-known Moriya.
The 2012 winner of this $551,000 event will collect $99,465.
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