Almagro moves on in Valencia Open

VALENCIA, Spain, April 10 (UPI) -- Defending champion Nicolas Almagro was among the first-round winners Tuesday at the clay-court Valencia Open in Spain.

Almagro, who is seeded third this week, had little trouble in ousting Jan Hajek, 6-2, 6-1. Second-seeded Juan Carlos Ferrero also won his first-round match in straight sets, topping Ernest Gulbis, 6-3, 6-1. Seventh-seeded Filippo Volandri also advanced, taking out Igor Andreev, 6-4, 7-6 (10-8).

However, two seeded players were upset in the first round. No. 6 Florian Mayer dropped a 6-3, 6-3 decision to Santiago Ventura and eighth-seeded Guillermo Garcia-Lopez lost, 6-3, 1-6, 6-3, to Evgeny Korolev.

Opening-round wins were also posted Tuesday by Augustin Gensse, Pablo Andujar, Marcel Granollers-Pujol and Italian Alessio Di Mauro.

The Valencia Open top seed is David Ferrer, will open his tournament Wednesday against Daniele Bracciali. Also on Day 3, fourth-seeded Fernando Verdasco will play Potito Starace.