Three seeds — No. 6 Fabio Fognini, No. 7 Yuichi Sugita and No. 8 Fernando Verdasco — all got off to winning starts on Tuesday at the Intrum Stockholm Open.

Italian Fognini, who picked up the Gstaad crown (d. Hanfmann) in July, opened his bid for a sixth ATP World Tour title by beating Malek Jaziri of Tunisia 7-5, 6-1 in 73 minutes. He now faces Argentine Leonardo Mayer or wild card Elias Ymer of Sweden.

Japan’s Sugita lived to fight another day, withstanding 15 aces in a dramatic 1-6, 6-3, 7-6(4) victory over Denis Istomin of Uzbekistan over one hour and 56 minutes. Istomin won the first five games of the pair’s third FedEx ATP Head2Head meeting, then recovered from 3-5 in the third set before squandering a 4/2 advantage in the tie-break. Sugita goes onto meet Slovakian Norbert Gombos or 2009 titlist Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus.

Spaniard Verdasco, runner-up at the Dubai Duty Free Tennis Championships (l. to Murray) in February, lost just one of his first service points (27/28) to record his fourth straight win in eight meetings (5-3) against Robin Haase 6-3, 6-1 in 47 minutes. He awaits the winner of Slovakian qualifier Lukas Lacko and lucky loser Jurgen Zopp of Estonia.

Elsewhere, France’s Jeremy Chardy set up a second-round encounter against third-seeded American Jack Sock after he hit 12 aces — and lost six of his first service points (27/33) — to beat Alessandro Giannessi of Italy in 72 minutes. He also beat Giannessi a few weeks ago at the Shenzhen Open 7-6(6), 6-4 in the first round.

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Fourth seed Jerzy Janowicz led four qualifiers through to the main draw at the Intrum Stockholm Open on Monday, defeating seventh seed Jurgen Zopp, 6-1, 6-7(3), 6-4. The Pole failed to convert on a match point while up 6-5 in the second set, and then three more up 5-3 in the decider. But after a one-hour, 46-minute tilt, he was able to get past the Estonian.

Janowicz will compete in his first tour-level main draw since advancing to the third round of Wimbledon in July. His last ATP World Tour victory came in Stuttgart this June. The 26 year old will play Frenchman Pierre-Hugues Herbert in the first round.

The top seed competing on Centre Court Tuesday as the main draw gets underway will be No. 6 Fabio Fognini. He will take on Malek Jaziri, while No. 8 Fernando Verdasco will face Montreal semi-finalist Robin Haase. The only other seed competing will be No. 7 Yuichi Sugita, who will look to move past recent Chengdu Open winner Denis Istomin on Court 1.