American wildcard Mardy Fish continued his tentative return to form at the ATP event in New Haven on Monday as he upset seventh seed Filippo Volandri of Italy 6-7, 7-5, 6-0 to reach the third round.

Fish hammered 18 aces as he won back-to-back matches for the first time since February to set up a clash with ninth seed Dominik Hrbaty of Slovakia or Argentine Jose Acasuso.

Second seed Tommy Robredo won his first match on hard courts this summer with a 6-4, 6-4 victory over Frenchman Marc Giquel to advance to round three.

Robredo now plays 12th seed Fernando Verdasco or American Vince Spadea, who edged out Russian Evgeny Korolev 6-2, 5-7, 7-5.

Finn Jarko Nieminen was the other man to book a place in the third round but the sixth seed needed a final-set tie-break to get past Spaniard Feliciano Lopez 3-6, 6-2, 7-6. Croat Mario Ancic, who came through qualifying after rejecting a wildcard into the tournament to gain more match practice, was ousted 7-6, 6-4 by Swiss Stanislas Wawrinka in the first round.

Frenchman Arnaud Clement and Julien Benneteau also advanced to round two while lucky loser Luis Horna of Peru beat Austrian Stefan Koubek 6-4, 2-6, 6-4.

In the women's event, sixth seed Elena Dementieva of Russia came through a tough match with Italian Mara Santangelo 6-2, 3-6, 6-0 to reach round two.

Seventh seed Sybille Bammer of Austria and number eight, Ukrainian Alona Bondarenko, advanced with straight-set victories.

Sania match halted
Sania Mirza’s opening encounter against Anabel Medina Garrigues of Spain was interrupted due to rain, adds PTI. The Indian star was trailing 0-1 in the first set against the 33rd-ranked Medina in the only match postponed due to rain. The match will resume at the Grandstand on Tuesday.

Sania will team up with Mara Santangelo of Italy to open her doubles campaign against the American duo of Corina Morariu and Meghann Shaughnessy.

Mahesh-Zimonjic win
Top seeds Mahesh Bhupathi and his Serbian partner Nenad Zimonjic beat Spaniards Nicolas Almagro and Fernando Verdasco in straight sets to advance to the quarterfinals of the doubles competition, adds PTI.

The Indo-Serb pair came through 7-5 6-3 against their unseeded rivals in the first round of the $675,250 event.

Bhupathi and Zimonjic will now be up against another unseeded Spanish pair of David Ferrer and Albert Montanes in the last-eight stage.