Written by
The Sports Network
Melbourne, Australia (Sports Network) - Croatian tennis hero Ivan Ljubicic
was a hard-fought opening-round winner Monday at the Zagreb Indoors tennis
event.
The top-seeded Ljubicic slammed 16 aces and held off Slovak Karol Beck 7-6
(7-5), 3-6, 6-3 in 2 hours, 18 minutes on the indoor hardcourts at Dom
Sportova. The former top-five star Ljubicic captured this tournament back in
2006.
A Croat has won four of the six titles here.
Fifth-seeded Italian Andreas Seppi handled German Daniel Brands 6-4, 7-6
(7-1), while seventh-seeded Dutchman Robin Haase moved on with a 6-2, 6-3
pasting of Croatian wild card Kristijan Mesaros.
Additional first-round wins came for German Matthias Bachinger and Slovak
Lukas Lacko.
Wednesday's schedule will feature matches for second-seeded Russian Alex
Bogomolov Jr., third-seeded Russian Mikhail Youzhny, sixth-seeded former
champion Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus and eighth-seeded Croat Ivo Karlovic. The
former Australian Open runner-up Baghdatis was the Zagreb champ in 2007.
This week's titlist will collect $90,000.
The Sports Network