BUENOS AIRES: Home-crowd favorite Carlos Berlocq defeated Jozef Kovalik of Slovakia 6-4, 6-4 on Tuesday to reach the second round of the clay-court Argentina Open.

In another first-round match, Alexandr Dolgopolov of Ukraine beat Janko Tipsarevic of Serbia 6-3, 6-3.

The four top-seeded players all have byes into the second round and did not play on Tuesday. Kei Nishikori of Japan is No. 1 followed by Pablo Cuevas of Uruguay, David Ferrer of Spain, and Pablo Carreno Busta of Spain.

The Argentina Open is the second stop on the Latin American clay-court swing. The big event is next week's tournament in Rio de Janeiro, where Nishikori is also seeded No. 1.