DOHA, Qatar -- Former top-10 stars Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nikolay Davydenko were a pair of opening-round winners Monday at the season-opening Qatar Open, an Australian Open tune-up.
The third-seeded Tsonga leveled Spain's Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo 6-2, 6-0, while a fourth-seeded and defending champion Davydenko handled Italian Fabio Fognini 6-1, 6-4 on the hardcourts at Khalifa Tennis Complex.
The Russian Davydenko upset Spanish great Rafael Nadal in last year's finale here.
Another seeded Day-1 winner was No. 7 Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, who got past Kazakhstan's Mikhail Kukushkin 6-1, 7-6 (7-1).
Additional Monday wins came for Ukrainians Illya Marchenko and wild card Sergei Bubka, who is the son of pole-vaulting legend Sergey Bubka. The younger Bubka should have his hands full with the French Tsonga in the round of 16.
This week's top seeds -- Nadal and Roger Federer -- will open their 2011 campaigns with first-round matches here on Tuesday. The reigning U.S. Open, Wimbledon and French Open champion Nadal will meet Slovak Karol Beck, while the reigning Aussie Open champ Federer will face Dutch qualifier Thomas Schoorel.
Federer is a two-time titlist (2005, 2006) in Doha.
The winner of this $1.11 million event will pocket $177,000.
