In the pair’s first meeting on the ATP World Tour, Pablo Cuevas upended Pablo Carreno Busta 6-2, 6-3 in just over an hour in the first round of the Valencia Open on Monday. The Uruguayan broke the Spaniard three times on nine break opportunities while not facing a break point. Cuevas will now face No. 3 seed Bernard Tomic in the second round.

In the other first-round encounter of the day, Vasek Pospisil kicked off his Valencia title bid with a 6-4, 6-3 win over Santiago Giraldo on Monday. The Canadian, who needed three sets to defeat Giraldo in the pair’s three previous FedEx Head2Head meetings (3-0), secured the win in just 71 minutes to notch his fourth win over the Colombian.

Pospisil’s straight-sets victory was made possible by some strong serving. The Vernon, BC native struck nine aces, won 25 of 26 first-serve points and did not face a break point en route to the second round. Next up is the winner of the match opposing Aljaz Bedene and Jeremy Chardy. Top seed David Ferrer could loom in the quarter-finals.

Bellucci/Fleming Take Out Top Doubles Seeds

No. 1 seeds Raven Klaasen and Rajeev Ram had their Spanish sojourn cut short by Thomaz Bellucci and Colin Fleming 3-6, 6-4, 10-4 in the first round on Monday.

Despite taking the first set and winning more points than their unseeded opponents (66-59), Klaasen/Ram were eliminated after 86 minutes. The South African/American dropped the lone break point faced on their serve, while Bellucci/Fleming saved eight of 10 break chances.

Swiss Indoors Basel 

Down a set to Rohan Bopanna and Florin Mergea at the Swiss Indoors Basel on Monday, Alexander Peya and Bruno Soares weren’t about to go down without a fight. Instead, the Austrian-Brazilian team charged back to score a convincing 4-6, 6-1, 10-8 win in 62 minutes.

Coming off a quarter-final showing in Vienna, Peya/Soares converted four of seven break-point opportunities and won 71 per cent (25 of 35) of their first-serve points on the afternoon. The duo is aiming for its first title since winning Munich in May (d. Mischa Zverev/Alexander Zverev).

Also advancing in Basel was the Colombian combo of Juan Sebastian Cabal/Robert Farah, 6-3, 6-4 winners over Switzerland’s Adrien Bosel/Marco Chiudinelli.