27 April,2011 07:02 AM IST | | Agencies
India's Somdev Devvarman beat Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin 1-6, 6-4, 6-2 in the first round of the Serbia open yesterday. He took two hours and 14 minutes to knock out Kukushkin in a fiercely contested match.
Devvarman faces 3rd seed Guillermo Garcia -Lopez in the 2nd round of the $416,650 Red Clay Championships.
Bartoli stunned
Elsewhere, World No 13 Marion Bartoli's preparations for the French Open were dealt a blow when she suffered a straight-sets defeat by Magdalena Rybarikova in the first round of the Barcelona Ladies Open.
The Frenchwoman had accepted a wild card and been installed as the top seed but it counted for little as she produced a poor all-round performance and failed to take advantage of her break points to go down to a 6-4 6-1 loss to the World No 72.
No 2 two seed Alexandra Dulgheru went through after her Slovakian opponent Zuzana Kucova retired with a hamstring injury with the former leading 6-1, 5-0.
