Slovakia's Dominik Hrbaty thrashed Russian sixth seed Dmitry Tursunov [ Images ] 6-1, 6-1 in the first round of the St Petersburg [ Images ] Open on Monday.

Tursunov, the only seeded player in action on the first day of the $1 million indoor tournament in Russia's [ Images ] second city, was clearly troubled by a painful shoulder, winning only 29 percent of his first serves.

"I injured my shoulder less than two weeks ago. I had to pull out of the Kremlin Cup, then lost in the first round at the Madrid Masters last week," the world number 26 told reporters.

"But I still have problems, especially when I serve. When you have pain it's hard to fight for victory."

Hrbaty, runner-up here in 2000, will now face unseeded German Rainer Schuettler [ Images ], who had little trouble dispatching Kremlin Cup winner Igor Kunitsyn of Russia 6-2 6-3.

"I was simply not fit enough to play the match," said Kunitsyn, who won his maiden ATP title in Moscow [ Images ] eight days ago.

"After winning the Kremlin Cup I was sick for four days and just could not properly prepare for this tournament. I was too slow, was missing a lot of balls. Just a bad match altogether."

On the bad day for the home nation, Evgeny Korolev, a cousin of Anna Kournikova [ Images ], was dumped out by Romanian Victor Hanescu 6-1 6-2.

Russia's second seed Nikolay Davydenko [ Images ], who has clinched his place in the season-ending Masters Cup in Shanghai, takes on Australian Chris Guccione on Tuesday while top seed and last year's winner Briton Andy Murray [ Images ] begins his campaign against Serbia's Viktor Troicki on Wednesday.