Youzhny safely through

Russian third seed Mikhail Youzhny had little trouble reaching the second round of the Kremlin Cup.

Home favourite reels off seven games in a row

Russian third seed Mikhail Youzhny had little trouble reaching the second round of the Kremlin Cup with a 6-1 7-6 victory over Argentina's Horacio Zeballos. The world number 30 won seven games in a row to lead 6-0 1-0 before Zeballos finally got on the board, and the world number 54 then broke to lead 3-1. But Youzhny broke back to level at 3-3 and went on to take the tiebreak 7-5. "In the first set I was confident and fresh, while he made too many mistakes," said Youzhny, who wrapped up victory in 86 minutes. "I took seven consecutive games but then lost my concentration for a while and lost a serve, while he was serving and returning much better. But it was my only mistake in the match and I managed to win the tiebreak." Next up for Youzhny in the last 16 will be Italian Potito Starace, who beat Russian Evgeny Donskoy 6-3 6-3. Fifth seed Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay also went through with a 6-4 6-2 win over Taiwan's Lu Yen-Hsun, to set up a second-round clash with Russian Teimuraz Gabashvili, who saw off Slovak Karol Beck 3-6 6-4 6-4.