Mon Apr 28 14:12:45 2008

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Canas takes Barcelona opener

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Barcelona, Spain (Sports Network) - Ninth-seeded Argentine Guillermo Canas was among Monday's first-round victors at the $1.29 million Open Sabadell Atlantico tennis event.

Canas got past Spaniard Oscar Hernandez 6-1, 6-4 on the red clay at Barcelona Tennis Club. Canas was last year's runner-up here to Spanish clay-court king Rafael Nadal.

Three other seeds reached the second round, while one upset was recorded on opening day. Eleventh-seeded Argentine Juan Ignacio Chela overcame Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-7 (2-7), 6-4, 6-2, while 14th-seeded Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka waltzed past Spanish qualifier Jose Antonio Sanchez de Luna 6-3, 6-3 and 15th-seeded Russian Dmitry Tursunov handled South African Kevin Anderson 6-4, 6-3 at this French Open tune-up.

The upset came when Ecuadorian veteran Nicolas Lapentti leveled 13th-seeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco 6-3, 6-4.

Lucky-loser Yuri Schukin, of Kazakhstan, doused American Robby Ginepri 6-4, 6-2, while Argentine Agustin Calleri dismissed former Aussie Open champion Thomas Johansson of Sweden 6-1, 6-3.

Other Day-1 wins came for Spanish qualifiers Marc Lopez, Daniel Gimeno-Traver and Gabriel Trujillo-Soler, German Denis Gremelmayr, Brazilian Marcos Daniel, Croatian wild card Mario Ancic, and Dutchman Robin Haase.

The heavy crowd favorite Nadal, this week's top seed, is the three-time defending Barcelona champion. The reigning three-time French Open champ is fresh off his fourth straight Monte Carlo title last week.

The 2008 Barcelona winner will collect $210,000.