Marat Safin began his final home tournament in style, beating Richard Gasquet 7-6 (7-5) 6-4 in the first round of the St Petersburg Open.
The 29-year-old, who bows out of professional tennis after next month's Masters event in Paris, took the first set on a tie-breaker before sealing the second with a single break of serve to book a second-round match with Igor Andreev, the fifth seed.
Safin's countryman Mikhail Youzhny, the top seed, made light work of his first-round match, beating Kazakhstan's Andrei Golubev 6-3 6-2, whilst another Russian, Igor Kunitsyn, beat seventh seed Pablo Cuevas 6-4 6-3.
In second-round action, the highest-profile casualty was fourth seed Jeremy Chardy.
The Frenchman lost 7-6 (9-7) 6-3 to Latvia's Ernests Gulbis.
There were no such problems for second and eighth seeds Victor Hanescu and Horacio Zeballos who were straight-set winners over Illya Marchenko and Oleksandr Dolgopolov Jr, while Germany's Bjorn Phau was a set to the good when his opponent, Karol Beck, withdrew because of illness.
In Vienna, second seed Radek Stepanek had little trouble in disposing of Frederico Gil as he moved into the quarter-finals of the ATP Bank Austria Tennis Trophy.
Stepanek, the world No.14, dominated on his serve and took less than an hour and 10 minutes to claim a 6-2 6-3 victory.
Fifth seed Nicolas Almagro also made it through with a 6-4 6-4 win over Wayne Odesnik.
Odesnik served nine aces, one more than his opponent, but the Spaniard was far more powerful on his service game.
Fourth seed Philipp Kohlschreiber was leading Victor Crivoi 6-2 3-0 after 34 minutes of play when his Romanian opponent retired with a right shoulder injury.
Third seed Gael Monfils, one behind Stepanek in the world rankings, moved into the second round after beating Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 7-5 6-4.
The 23-year-old won 79 percent of service points and hit seven aces as he looks to clinch one of two remaining spots at the ATP World Tour Finals in November.
Serbian Janko Tipsarevic, who lost to Mikhail Youzhny in his first ATP World Tour final at the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, ousted eighth-seeded American John Isner 7-6 (7-4) 6-4 in just over 90 minutes.
Daniel Koellerer beat Jarkko Nieminen 6-1 6-2 while Dominik Hrbaty enjoyed a 6-3 6-4 win over Ruben Ramirez Hidalgo.
In France, second-seeded Gilles Simon was pushed all the way before finally topping Simone Bolelli in the first round of the Grand Priz de Tennis de Lyon.
Home-favourite Simon needed more than two hours to see off the Italian 7-6 (7-5) 7-6 (7-5).
The Frenchman fired 14 aces but Bolelli hung tough to drag the game out.
Another Frenchman through to the second round is Paul-Henri Mathieu, with the sixth-seed beating Argentina's Leonardo Mayer 7-6 (7-5) 6-2.
Nicolas Kiefer came from behind to beat wildcard Sebastian Grosjean 4-6 7-6 (9-7) 7-6 (6-2) in a two-and-a-half hour epic, while Olivier Rochus made much lighter work of beating Frenchman Vincent Millot 6-3 6-2.
The second round is already under way, with fifth seed Julien Benneteau beating qualifier Kelvin Anderson 7-5 6-2, and Florent Serra topped Albert Montanes 7-5 6-3.