India's Somdev Devvarman beat Russian Igor Kunitsynfor the first time in four meetings when he easily won his first round at theDubai Duty Free tennis championships in straight sets 6-1, 6-4 here Mondaynight.
Devvarman, using his protected ranking as he is returningfrom an injury break, got a direct entry here and continued his good form tooutclass the Russian, who is presently ranked 167 on the ATP charts, in 65minutes.
The Indian, who was out with an injury for most part of lastyear and is currently ranked 315, looked far more impressive than the Russianwho in 2009 had his best ranking at 35.
Somdev, whose best ranking was 62 two years ago, racedthrough the first set dropping just one game and with an early break he lookedon a cruise in the second set, too.
But the Russian broke back to tie two games all.
Somdev was back in the driver's seat by breaking Kunitsynagain in the seventh game and with his steady hitting from the back court heclinched his next two service games.
The Indian will next take on the winner of the match betweenfourth-seeded Juan Martin Del Potro and Cypriot Marcos Baghdatis in the secondround.
Second-seeded Roger Federer had a tough firstround match against Tunisian Malek Jaziri, dropping the first set beforerecovering to take the next two without breaking sweat, 5-7, 6-0, 6-2.