Sixth seed Dmitry Tursunov was dumped out of the St Petersburg Open in the first round with a 4-6 6-3 6-4 defeat by Belarus' Max Mirnyi on Wednesday.

Mirnyi broke the Russian in the seventh game of the final set when the world number 22 double-faulted on break point.

The lanky Belarussian then closed out the match with his customary delivery in just under two hours.

Fourth-seeded German Tommy Haas also booked his place in the second round with a 6-2 6-7 6-2 victory over Serbian qualifier Nenad Zimonjic.

Haas allowed a 4-1 lead in the second set to slip through his grasp before making amends in the decider,

"Finally, I got to celebrate my first win here today," said Haas, who lost in the first round on his previous visit in 2001.

"You never know what to expect from a player like Zimonjic, who is mostly known as a doubles player, especially playing him indoors so I was quite happy with my game today.

"I've made a few easy unforced errors at the end of the second set but fortunately I was able to find my rhythm again in the third set to close out the match."

Earlier, fifth-seeded Finn Jarkko Nieminen was forced to retire from his second-round match against unseeded Potito Starace with the Italian leading 7-5 3-2.

"He (Nieminen) had a small cut on his left foot and it got infected," an ATP spokesman said.

"He had trouble stepping on his foot and could not continue."

The 97th-ranked Starace advanced to the quarter-finals for the third time this year and will meet either Haas or Russian wildcard Igor Kunitsyn.

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