Baghdatis, Chardy Ousted in Casablanca

Grand Prix Hassan II—Casablanca, Morocco

Second-Round Results:

No. 8 seed Victor Hanescu defeats Michael Berrer 6-4, 7-6(4); Andrey Kuznetsov defeats No. 2 seed Marcos Baghdatis 6-4, 4-6, 6-4; Pablo Andujar defeats No. 6 seed Jeremy Chardy 7-6(6), 6-1; Pere Riba defeats No. 4 seed Andrey Golubev 0-6, 6-1, 7-5.

Starace and Fognini Prevail in Morocco; Sweeting Wins in Houston

Grand Prix Hassan II—Casablanca, Morocco

First-Round Results:

Filippo Volandri defeats Julien Benneteau 7-5, 6-3; Fredrico Gil defeats Simone Bolelli 6-3, 6-1; Blaz Kavcic defeats Reda El Amrani 3-4 ret.; No 7 seed Fabio Fognini defeats Gerard Granollers-Pujol 6-2, 4-6, 6-3; No. 5 seed Potito Starace defeats Daniel Brands 7-5, 6-2; Michael Berrer defeats Nicolas Devilder 6-3, 6-3; Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo defeats Rui Machado 7-5, 6-1; Andrey Kuznetsov defeats Sergio Gutierrez-Ferrol 6-1, 7-6(5).

US Men’s Clay Court Championship—Houston, U.S.A.

First-Round Results:

Ryan Sweeting defeats Tim Smyczek 6-2, 6-2; Somdev Devvarman defeats Robert Kendrick 6-2, 6-1; Albert Ramos defeats Brian Dabul 6-4 7-5.

Chardy and Hanescu Advance in Casablanca

Grand Prix Hassan II—Casablanca, Morocco

First-Round Results:

No. 6 seed Jeremy Chardy defeats Bjorn Phau 6-2, 7-5; No. 8 seed Victor Hanescu defeats Daniel Gimeno-Traver 4-6, 6-4, 6-4; Pablo Andujar defeats Florent Serra 6-1, 3-6, 6-2; Pere Riba defeats Jesse Huta Galung 6-3, 6-3.

Day Three Review: Houston and Casablanca

US Men’s Clay Court Championships—Houston, Texas

Defending champion Lleyton Hewitt will begin his Houston campaign at the River Oaks Country Club today against lucky loser Somdev Devvarman.

Seeing action for the first time since aggravating a hip injury at the Australian Open, Hewitt will face his Indian opponent for the first time. Devvarman entered the draw when Mardy Fish withdraw with a lower back injury, before defeating Conor Niland 6-4, 6-2 in first-round action.

Hewitt, who is currently ranked No. 27 in the world, reached the fourth-round of the Australian Open before losing to Roger Federer. The Australian defeated Wayne Odesnik in last year’s Houston title match.

Hewitt will be vying for his 28th career title in Texas this week.

Elsewhere, No. 3 seed Sam Querrey will entertain a supportive night session crowd when he faces Blaz Kavcic in second-round action. Kavcic defeated Denis Istomin 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 on Tuesday.

Querrey, who currently stands at 1-2 on clay this year, lost in the opening round in Acapulco, Mexico to Fernando Gonzalez, before splitting his two Davis Cup matches in Belgrade, Serbia.

Querrey and Kavcic have never met on the ATP World Tour.

The day’s remaining two matches will feature Juan Ignacio Chlea taking on countryman No. 7 seed Edurado Schwank, and American Ryan Sweeting battling Nicolas Massu of Chile.

Sweeting picked up his first win of the season by ousting No. 5 seed Evgeny Korolev 6-3, 4-6, 6-2 on Tuesday, while Massu improved to 3-3 on the year by defeating Mischa Zverev 6-4, 6-2.

Grand Prix Hassan II—Casablanca, Morocco

No. 2 seed Guillermo Garcia-Lopez stormed into the quarterfinals in Casablanca on Wednesday, defeating countryman Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-2.

Needing one hour and 26 minutes to dispatch Granollers, Garcia-Lopez won 85 percent of his first serve points, while breaking the serve of his opponent on four of 11 occasions.

Garcia-Lopez, who captured his first career title in Austria last spring, won his fifth match of the season and continued his fine form through March. The Spaniard defeated Marin Cilic in Indian Wells.

Garcia-Lopez will next face defending finalist Florent Serra, who overcame a first set deficit to dismiss Stephane Robert 2-6, 6-1, 6-3.

Although the match went three sets, the encounter took only one hour and 26 minutes to complete. Serra, who had recently taken Roger Federer to two tiebreak sets before losing in Miami, struck five aces and won 72 percent of his first serve points while facing his countryman for the first time.

Robert had reached his first career ATP World Tour final in Johannesburg, South Africa in February.

Serra and Garica-Lopez have never met on the circuit.

Elsewhere, No. 4 seed Lukasz Kubot, who has transformed himself into a competent singles player, defeated Arnaud Clement 6-4, 6-2 in second-round action.

Receiving a bye in the opening round, Kubot improved to 12-8 on the season, courtesy of seven breaks of serve against his French opponent.

Both players did not exhibit high first serve points won during the one hour and 36 minute affair—Kubot won 57 percent to Clement’s 52 percent. However, Kubot’s ability to hit through the slow clay-court in Morocco more affectively allowed for his win. Clement typically struggles on clay, due to his inability to generate a tremendous about of power.

Kubot will now move onto a quarterfinal showdown with Potito Starace, who reached his second quarterfinal of the season after dismantling Oscar Hernandez 6-2, 6-1.

Starace had reached the quarterfinal in Sydney to begin the season. The Italian scored his sixth win of the year, and will take a 1-0 head-to-head lead over Kubot in the final eight.

Hernandez had won his first match of the year on Tuesday, dropped to 1-8 on the season.

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