Gianluca Pozzi looked good value for his number two seeding as he breezed past Lorenzo Manta in straight sets in the first round of the XL Capital Bermuda Open yesterday.

The Italian left-hander, ranked 72 in the world, took command from the start against his Swiss opponent in the day's opening centre court match, never dropped a service game and ran out a 6-3, 6-3 winner.

The most notable success of Manta's career came at Wimbledon last year where he defeated former champion Richard Krajcek on the way to the fourth round.

The world number 112's most dangerous weapon was his powerful serve, but his first serve percentage needed to be higher than he achieved to trouble the wily Pozzi.

The 34-year-old Pozzi showed the value of his vast experience, timing his forays to the net well and showing much the greater patience of the two during long rallies.

But Pozzi said afterwards that the green clay surface wasn't his favourite.

"I prefer hard courts, but the American clay is a bit faster than the European, so that's better for me,'' said Pozzi.

"I've played Manta twice before and both times I won in two sets, so I knew I was favourite. But you never know, because he has a big serve and if he was on with that, he would have been very hard to play.

"I think I played a good match and I didn't give him many free points and he made a few too many mistakes.'' Asked if he thought he would win the tournament, Pozzi said: "I'm not sure.

This is not my favourite surface and I'm just taking one match at a time.

There are not a lot of claycourt specialists here, but there are some tough, tough players, so it's not going to be easy.'' Pozzi applied pressure from the outset, earning and spurning break points in Manta's first two service games, before finally converting one in the fifth game to take a 3-2 lead.

The Italian sealed the first set 6-3 by breaking Manta again, using the pace of Manta's fierce first serve to steer a forehand pass down the line on set point.

The second set went with serve until the fourth game, when Pozzi produced two viciously sliced, deep approach shots to Manta's backhand, both of which earned him easy kills at the net and put him into a 3-1 lead.

Pozzi looked assured and comfortable when attacking at the net and his unwaveringly accurate backhand is a weapon likely to trouble many opponents at the Open.

In the second round, Pozzi will meet either Indian doubles specialist Leander Paes or Canada's Sebastian Lareau.

There were few surprises on the first day session of main draw action, as the three other seeds playing all advanced to the second round with straight-sets victories.

Number four seed Andre Sa, of Brazil, defeated Sweden's Fredrik Jonsson 6-0, 6-4, while seventh-seeded Jiri Vanek of the Czech Republic cruised past Italian qualifier Giorgio Galimberti 6-1, 6-2.

Number eight seed Markus Hantschk had a much tougher test against American qualifier Mike Russell, the German finally prevailing 6-3, 7-6.

Russell broke Hantschk's serve in the opening game of the second set and could have squared the match if he had served out at 5-4. But Hantshk broke back and eventually won a hard-fought tiebreaker of lengthy rallies 7-5.

Russell, however, was none too impressed with the surface of court five which produced some inconsistent bounces and after miscuing a shot out of bounds, he exclaimed: "We're playing on a minefield here!'' Sa, the number three ranked player in Brazil behind Gustavo Kuerten and Fernando Meligeni, was unstoppable in the first set of his encounter with Jonsson.

But after losing the set 6-0, the Swede bounced back to win the first three games of the second set.

The 22-year-old Brazil Davis Cup player battled his way back to parity and finally took the second set 6-4.

Like most South Americans on the ATP Tour, Sa looked at home on the clay, spending most of his time hitting a mixture of flat, powerful groundstrokes and looping top-spin balls from the baseline.

But his coach Fernando Roese said clay was not Sa's favourite surface.

"Andre spent six years living in the US and playing at the Bolletieri Tennis Academy and he prefers to play on hard courts,'' said Roese.

"He can play on clay, he just needs to improve a little. Anybody here could win the tournament and Andre has a chance, but he will have a very tough match in the second round.'' The next opponent for Sa will be either Todd Woodbridge or Richey Reneberg, two of the best-known players in the tournament.

Australian Woodbridge, who teamed up with Mark Woodforde in the most successful men's doubles team of the last decade, the "Woodies'', yesterday gave up some of his time to hit with local juniors.

Enjoying the session on one of Coral Beach's practice courts were teenagers Jovan Whitter, Ryan Swan, Gavin Manders and Philip Sousa.