Swedish Sofia Arvidsson serves against Chinese Shuai Peng on the second day of the WTA Brussels Open Tennis Tournament Tuesday. — AFPBRUSSELS – Sofia Arvidsson of Sweden knocked out seventh seed Peng Shuai of China 7-5, 6-3 in a first round match at the Brussels Open tennis Tournament here Tuesday.
In another match another unseeded player Chanelle Scheepers of South Africa bundled out ninth seed Anastasia Pavlyuchenkova of Russia 7-5, 6-2.

Bernard Tomic reaches 2nd round
In Nice, fifth-seeded Bernard Tomic of Australia and seventh-seeded Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan won Tuesday to reach the second round of the Open de Nice.

Tomic beat Lukas Lacko of Slovakia 6-2, 6-3, breaking serve twice in each set. He next plays Mikhail Kukushkin of Kazakhstan, who eased past big-serving Sam Querrey 6-2, 7-5.

Istomin advanced with a 7-6 (3), 1-6, 6-1 victory over Alejandro Falla of Colombia. That sets up a match with Russia’s Nikolay Davydenko, who defeated Matthew Ebden of Australia 6-3, 6-3. Xavier Malisse of Belgium beat Lu Yen-hsun of Taiwan 7-5, 6-4; Grigor Dimitrov of Bulgaria defeated Dudi Sela of Israel 7-5, 6-1; and Edouard Roger-Vasselin topped Benoit Paire 6-4, 7-6 (2) in an all-French match.

Schiavone advances

In Strasbourg, second-seeded Francesca Schiavone eased into the second round of the Strasbourg International after beating Alexandra Cadantu of Romania 6-1, 6-2 Tuesday, while three other seeded players lost.

The former French Open champion broke Cadantu’s serve six times and next plays qualifier Mirjana Lucic of Croatia, who rallied to beat Britain’s Anne Keothavong 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.

Third-seeded Maria Kirilenko of Russia, No. 5 Mona Barthel of Germany, and No. 6 Marina Erakovic of New Zealand all went out.
Kirilenko retired at the start of the third set against Sloane Stephens of the US with the score 3-6, 7-5, Barthel lost 6-3, 7-6 (7) to Russia’s Alexandra Panova, and Erakovic was thrashed 6-1, 6-3 by Japan’s Ayumi Morita.

Lucie Hradecka, Virginie Razzano, Johanna Larsson and Timea Babos also advanced.

Seles, Wilander to present trophies

Former French Open champions Monica Seles and Sweden’s Mats Wilander will present the trophies to the women’s and men’s singles champions at this year’s renewal the organisers announced Monday.

Yugoslavia-born naturalised American Seles, 38, won the women’s singles title three times (1990-92) and will present the ladies trophy on June 9 and fellow triple French Open champion (1982, 85, 88) Wilander, 47, the men’s the following day.

Nishikori out of French Open

World No. 18 Kei Nishikori has pulled out of the French Open because of a stomach injury, the Japanese said Tuesday.
Nishikori said on his website (www.blog.keinishikori.com) that he had not fully recovered from the injury he picked up in Barcelona last month.

Soderling rules out Olympics

Sweden’s Robin Soderling, who has not played since last July with mononucleosis, Monday ruled out competing at the 2012 Olympics.

The 27-year-old will also miss the Grand Slam events at Roland Garros and Wimbledon prior to the London Games.

“The Olympic Games are always special. It’s not that it’s difficult to miss a particular event but that I really want to replay,” said Soderling who did not indicate when he would return.

“I really want to return, I’m not 28 years yet and I hope to still have many years (to play),” he added.

The former world number four has not competed since mid-July when he won in Baastad - his fourth title of the season after Brisbane, Rotterdam and Marseille.

Soderling is a two-time French Open runner-up. — Agencies