Nalbandian, Blake progress
03/14/2010 04:38:26 AM
Argentinian wild-card David Nalbandian and American James Blake both safely negotiated their way through the first round of the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells.
Nalbandian saw off qualifier Stefan Koubek of Austria 6-2 7-6 (7/2) while Blake blew past Spaniard Daniel Gimeno-Traver 6-3 6-2.
However, France's Richard Gasquet lost a tough battle against Simon Greul of Germany, going down 7-6 (10/8) 7-6 (9/7).
Two wild-cards made swift exits as American Jesse Levine lost to Israeli Dudi Sela 6-2 6-2 while fellow American Robby Ginepri lost 2-6 7-5 (7/5) 6-3 to Italian Andreas Seppi.
Also going through were Victor Hanescu, Arnaud Clement, Sergiy Stakhovsky, Thiemo De Bakker, Yen-Hsun Lu, Michael Russell, Nicolas Almagro, Marinko Matosevic, Ricardo Mello, Paul-Henri Mathieu and Evgeny Korolev.