NUREMBERG, Germany -- Seeded Italians Roberta Vinci and Karin Knapp had little difficulty in advancing to the second round of the Nuremberg Cup on the clay-court tournament's opening day Sunday.
The fourth-seeded Vinci defeated Vitalia Diatchenko of Russia 6-1, 6-1 and the sixth-seeded Knapp beat German wild-card entry Antonia Lottner 6-2, 7-5.
Also Sunday, the seventh-seeded Kurumi Nara of Japan defeated Polona Hercog of Slovenia 7-5, 5-7, 6-2, Evgeniya Rodina of Russia rallied to defeat Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 4-6, 6-3, 7-5 and Zhang Shuai of China defeated Bojana Jovanovski of Serbia 6-1, 7-5.
Top-seeded Germans Andrea Petkovic, Angelique Kerber and Sabine Lisicki were to play their opening-round matches on Monday.