Defending champion Nicolas Almagro of Spain beat crowd favorite Ricardo Hocevar 7-6 (4), 7-5 in the first round of the Brazil Open on Monday. The top-seeded Almagro needed 1 hour, 43 minutes to get past the wild card Brazilian in the $562,000 clay event in northeastern Brazil. Almagro got off to a slow start, but took the first set by dominating the tiebreaker and then broke Hocevar late in the... More...