David Ferrer makes hard work of progress in Antwerp

Spaniard Ferrer, seeded fifth in Belgium, had to come from behind to advance courtesy of a 4-6 6-4 7-6 (7/3) success in a tournament which David Goffin, Jo-Wilfried Tsonga and Nick Kyrgios will all enter at the second-round phase.

Ferrer was the only seed to win on Tuesday as Pablo Cuevas, Benoit Paire and Alexandr Dolgopolov all exited at the first hurdle.

At the Kremlin Cup in Moscow, Russian teenager Andrey Rublev was beaten in straight sets by Serbian Filip Krajinovic, who recorded his first ATP Tour-level win of the season.

Sixth seed Damir Dzumhur continued his fine recent form with a 6-3 0-6 6-2 success over Italian Thomas Fabbiano and Andreas Seppi ousted Jiri Vesely.

Another Serb, Laslo Djere, held his nerve, staving off a match point in the second set against Paolo Lorenzi, to win 4-6 7-6 (11/9) 6-4.

Former Stockholm Open champion Marcos Baghdatis encountered few difficulties in the first round of this year's tournament as he saw off Norbert Gombos 6-3 6-4.

All three of the seeded players in action on Tuesday - Fabio Fognini, Yuichi Sugita and Fernando Verdasco - advanced with respective victories over Malek Jaziri, Denis Istomin and Robin Haase.

Sugita had the most problems having fallen behind 4-2 in the decisive tie-break, but he recovered to win 1-6 6-3 7-6 (7/4) and set up a second-round clash with Baghdatis.