Sportmaster International

Las Vegas, NV - Fifth-seeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco was among Monday’s round-robin winners at the $416,000 Tennis Channel Open.Verdasco came from behind to beat Frenchman Paul-Henri Mathieu 3-6, 6-3, 7-5 at Darling Tennis Center.In other round-robin matches, American Paul Goldstein defeated sixth-seeded Frenchman Julien Benneteau, 6-1, 6-0; and Argentine Juan Martin del Potro downed Russian Evgeny Korolev, 6-3, 6-2.In Day-2 main-draw elimination action, 2002 Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson of Sweden overcame German Bjorn Phau 4-6,

6-4, 6-1.Additional main-draw elimination wins came for Brazil’s Gustavo Kuerten, Thai qualifier Danai Udomchoke, Russian Igor Kunitsyn, Spaniard Feliciano Lopez, American Sam Querrey and Chilean qualifier Paul Capdeville. Kuerten, a three- time French Open champion, defeated South African Wesley Moodie, 6-4, 7-5; while Udomchoke topped American Robert Kendrick 6-4, 7-6 (9-7). Querrey downed Alex Bogdanovic, 6-3, 6-2.This week’s event is a 32-player round-robin, consisting of a 16-player ‘play- off’ with eight winners joining 16 other players to make-up eight groups of three players. Each player will play two guaranteed matches in the round-robin stage, with the winner from each group advancing to the quarterfinals, where the tournament will be played out per a traditional single-elimination format.James Blake beat Lleyton Hewitt in last year’s first-ever Las Vegas finale. This week’s top seeds are Blake and former world No. 1s Hewitt and Marat Safin.Blake will open his round-robin play Tuesday night against Korolev.© 2007 The Sports Network