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Bucharest, Romania (SportsNetwork.com) – Eighth-seeded Finnish veteran Jarkko Nieminen was a hard-fought opening-round winner Monday at the $590,000 BRD Nastase Tiriac Trophy tennis event.
The 32-year-old left-handed Nieminen held off Argentine Leonardo Mayer 6-3, 3-6, 7-6 (7-4) on the red clay at BNR Arenas.
Also on Day 1, Czech Jiri Vesely foiled Frenchman Jeremy Chardy 7-6 (7-3), 6-0 and Ukrainian Sergiy Stakhovsky overcame Romanian wild card Patrick Ciorcila 2-6, 6-2, 6-1. Vesely is rewarded with a second-round match against this week’s top seed, rising Bulgarian star Grigor Dimitrov.
Czech Lukasz beat Spaniard Guillermo Garcia-Lopez in last year’s Bucharest finale.
The 2014 winner will collect $106,725.