Youzhny wins St. Petersburg opener

1:04 PM, Sep 18, 2012   |    comments
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St. Petersburg, Russia (Sports Network) - Former champion and Russian crowd favorite Mikhail Youzhny was among Tuesday's first-round winners at the St. Petersburg Open tennis event.

The top-seeded Youzhny handled Canadian Vasek Pospisil 7-6 (7-4), 6-1 on the indoor hardcourts at SCC Peterburgsky.

The former top-10 star Youzhny titled in St. Petersburg in 2004 and was the runner-up here in 2002 and 2010. His second-round opponent will be American Rajeev Ram.

In other action involving seeds on Day 2, Slovenian Grega Zemlja doused No. 5 Lukas Lacko of the Slovak Republic 6-3, 6-2 and Spaniard Roberto Bautista-Agut upended No. 6 Yen-Hsun Lu of Taiwan 6-4, 6-2.

One other opening-round affair saw Spain's Daniel Gimeno-Traver defeat Frenchman Florent Serra 7-6 (7-5), 6-2.

The Sports Network