Mirnyi Upsets Verdasco; Stepanek Next for Roddick

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Max Mirnyi, the “Beast” from Belarus, opened the 2007 Artois Championships with a bang on Monday, upsetting No. 16 seed Fernando Verdasco in straight sets to book his place in the second round.

Mirnyi, who has reached the third round at The Queen’s Club on his last two visits before losing to four-time champion Lleyton Hewitt, set up a meeting with either Gael Monfils or Igor Andreev after a 6-3, 6-3 win against Verdasco.

Elsewhere on the opening day, Czech Radek Stepanek earned a second round meeting with three-time Artois winner Andy Roddick after his opponent, Italy’s Davide Sanguinetti, retired with a knee injury mid-way through the second set. Stepanek, watched by fiancée Martina Hingis, was leading 6-2, 2-0 when the Italian called it a day.

Meanwhile, Argentine teenager Juan Martin del Potro defeated former Australian Open champion Thomas Johansson to earn a second round meeting with top seed Rafael Nadal. The 18-year-old del Potro took just under an hour to record a 6-2, 6-4 win against Sweden's Johansson, who won both Halle and Nottingham on grass in 2001 and was a semifinalist at Wimbledon in 2005. Nadal overcame del Potro in the first round of the French Open in Paris two weeks ago.

Other winners on day one included Frenchmen Arnaud Clement, Michael Llodra and Paul-Henri Mathieu, while Australian Chris Guccione defeated Andreas Seppi.