TENNIS WORLD

Berdych, Haas Post Wins Over Seeds

Tomas Berdych of the Czech Republic and Tommy Haas of Germany eliminated seeds in opening round action while Dmitry Tursunov defeated former No. 1 Marat Safin in a battle of Russians on Monday.
Berdych beat No. 13 seed Fernando Gonzalez 6-3, 3-6, 6-3, posting his first win over the Chilean in four career meetings and Haas ousted No. 14 Mikhail Youzhny 7-6(2), 2-6, 6-4.
In the evening session, Tursunov prevailed for the second time over Safin 7-6(5), 6-4, while Frenchman Gael Monfils needed only 53 minutes to defeat American wild card Donald Young 6-1, 6-1.
After splitting the first two sets, Berdych broke Gonzalez in the second game of the final set and never faced a break point the rest of the way in the one hour and 40-minute match.
"My memories are good for this week and for this tournament," said Berdych, who beat No. 2 Rafael Nadal three years ago. "Well, I'm always happy coming here, but in the few last years I didn't have as good results as I would expect. I hope this year it's going to change and it's going to be everything different." Haas fired 17 aces and improved to 3-2 lifetime against Youzhny in the two hour and eight minute battle. Both players won 88 points each but the difference came in the third set as Haas broke in the ninth game and served out the match.
Haas will face Gael Monfils in the second round with the winner having a chance to possibly take on the hottest player in the world, No. 2 Rafael Nadal, who comes into Cincinnati with a career-best 29-match winning streak.
Tursunov rallied from an 0-3 deficit in the first set tie-break against Safin and closed out the 54-minute set with an ace to prevail 7-5. In the second set, the only break of the match came in the ninth game as Safin struggled with three double faults. He finished with nine on the night while only turning in a 43 percent mark on first serves.
"I think there was pretty good serving, so it was pretty hard to have any rallies," said Tursunov, who also defeated Safin at Wimbledon in 2004. "But yeah, we managed to squeeze how out a few good rallies."
American Robby Ginepri defeated the oldest player in the field, 36-year-old Swedish qualifier Jonas Bjorkman 6-0, 7-6(5), to set up a second round showdown with World No. 1 Roger Federer on Tuesday. Federer is 4-0 lifetime but the Georgia resident has played well despite falling short each time.
"We played here a couple years ago and I actually took a set off him, so I know I can fare up pretty well against him," said Ginepri, who lost 4-6, 7-5, 6-4 in the semifinals in 2005. "It's going to be a difficult match obviously. I'll have to serve extremely well and be patient out there and try to attack his backhand when I can.
"It'll always go to a tiebreaker or something. There's one or two points here, I have a couple break point chances. But that's why he's No. 1. He always seems to squeak those matches out. Maybe tomorrow can be different for me."