Second seed Viktor Troicki started off his Kremlin Cup campaign with a win over Spaniard Pere Riba on Wednesday 6-4 6-4. Troicki is the defending Champion in Moscow. He defeated Marcos Baghdatis in last year’s final.
The Serbian player claimed victory in one hour and 20 minutes and he broke serve once in each set. The 25-year-old is without titles this year. His best result so far was reaching the final in Sydney earlier in the year. Next up for the Serb is American Alex Bogomolov Jr. Bogomolov overcame Kazakhstani player Mikhail Kukushkin in three sets.
Former Champion Nikolay Davydenko ousted fellow Russian Teymuraz Gabashvili 7-5 6-2. Davydenko, a former world number three won the title in 2004, 2006 and 2007. His quarterfinal opponent will be German qualifier Michael Berrer. The German caused a bit of an upset when he took out the number eight seed Andreas Seppi of Italy in the second round. Berrer is currently ranked No. 98.
Julien Benneteau got through his first round on Wednesday beating Russian wildcard Evgeny Donskoy 6-4 6-3. The Frenchman faces the number six seed Dmitry Tursunov in the second round.
Top seeds in the doubles Frantisek Cermak and Filip Polasek fought hard for their first round win on Wednesday. They defeated Sergiy Stakhovsky and Mikhail Youzhny 10-7 in the third set match tiebreak.
The second seeded doubles team of Daniele Bracciali and Potito Starace of Italy suffered a loss to Mikhail Elgin and Denis Istomin in straight sets in the first round.
The winning doubles team at the Kremlin Cup will share $40140 and earn 240 ranking points.
Topics: Davydenko, Viktor Troicki