seeded Flavia Pennetta of Italy has secured a comfortable straight-sets win over Kathrin Woerle to advance to the second round of the Palermo Open. The defending champion beat her German opponent 6-3, 6-1 Tuesday. Second-seeded Aravane Rezai of France had to dig deep, though, for her 7-5, 4-6, 6-2 victory over Romania's Simona Halep. Two other seeded players also progressed to the second round. Eighth-seeded Julia Goerges of Germany beat Italy's Martina Caregaro, 6-3, 6-2, while ninth-seeded Italian Alberta Brianti defeated Arantxa Rus of the Netherlands 7-6 (0), 6-2. Safarova, Dulgheru thru In Prague, top-seeded Lucie Safarova of the Czech Republic defeated Anastasija Sevastova of Latvia 6-4, 7-5 to advance to the second round of the Prague Open Tuesday. Second-seeded Alexandra Dulgheru of Romania overcame Tathiana Garbin of Italy 6-4, 4-6, 6-2 but unseeded Monica Niculescu of Romania upset third-seeded Timea Bacsinszky of Switzerland 6-3, 7-5. Safarova next plays Johanna Larsson of Sweden while Niculescu will face Czech Lucie Hradecka, who beat Stefanie Voegele of Switzerland 7-6 (6), 6-2. Seventh-seeded Agnes Szavay of Hungary, fresh from winning her hometown Budapest title, also advanced with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Liana Ungur of Romania. In other matches, fifth-seeded Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain routed wild card Kristyna Pliskova of Czech Republic, who won the Wimbledon title in the girls' singles, 6-1, 6-3 and Patty Schnyder of Switzerland rallied to beat wild card Zarina Diyas of Kazakhstan 6-7 (2), 6-4, 6-1. Robredo wins in straight sets In Sweden, Tommy Robredo of Spain made it through to the second round of the Swedish Open after beating Poland's Michal Przysiezny in straight sets Tuesday. Fifth-seeded Robredo won 7-6 (3), 6-3 in 80 minutes at the clay-court tournament. Robredo will face Kazakhstan's Andrey Golubev in the next round, after he comfortably beat Maximo Gonzalez of Argentina 6-3, 6-2. Also into the second round are Jarkko Nieminen of Finland, Andreas Seppi of Italy and Sweden's Ervin Eleskovic. Kohlschreiber bows out In Germany, local hope Philipp Kohlschreiber bowed out of the first round of the Mercedes Cup Tuesday, falling to German compatriot Florian Mayer 6-4, 6-2. There was no such upset for fifth seeded Albert Montanes of Spain, who defeated Germany's Philipp Petzschner 2-6, 7-5, 6-2 to advance to the second round. Montanes' compatriot Daniel Gimeno-Traver eliminated the defending champion Jeremy Chardy of France, 7-5, 6-7 (6), 6-3. Also into last 16 were Germans Bjoern Phau and Simon Greul, Spaniards Pablo Andujar and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez, and Argentina's Juan Ignacio Chela and Horacio Zeballos, along with Gilles Simon of France.
