Time to finish the first round matches. The title defender Santiago Giraldo defeated Pablo Andujar from Spain 6-2 7-5. Thomaz Bellucci, winner of Santiago Challenger, had no problems against Dick Norman and another Brazilian - Marcos Daniel, also won easily against Brian Dabul.

Match in progress, Koellerer - Salamanca 1-1 and rain break - resumed tomorrow.

Scores from Kyoto arrived delayed. The more impatient tennis fans tried to help themselves by using translators, but they not only changed the meaning of players' names (Ito => Suzuki Your Man), but also played with the real scores. To remove all doubts, Dieter Kindlmann from Germany defeated Tatsuma Ito 6-1 6-4.

Thiago Alves trashed Diego Junqueira 6-2 6-1 and Fernando Vicente dealt with Nicolas Devilder 6-0 6-1. It looks like the players are quick in making up for the rain delays.

Also, the second seed and Eduardo Schwank are out.

The second seed Robert Smeets from Australia proved he isn't a favourite of the tournament after barely beating Michael Ryderstedt of Sweden 5-7 7-6(2) 6-4. The Japanese players keep losing, and the oldest among them, Gouichi Motomura, got an ankle injury before his doubles match.

Kyoto's website appears to a random tennis fan as "??????," while the top seed word in Bogota is "lluvia." It means "rain." We're going to have a tough time with these events, but we'll defeat them.

News from Monday and some words of a preview.

Worthy winners at both events. Ireland needs a good sportsman since Roy Muirís O'Catháin retired, and Brazil always is in need of serious tennis players, to not let this sport die in a sea of football, volleyball, F1 and surfing.

The tournament finished, the home player won, and the home reporter wrote the summary. Enjoy the read, and see you with Renaud next year.

You know about the malice of dead things. Renaud's report was sent but not delivered. Here are the scores plus a couple of his thoughts.

I'm sorry I'm not updating regularly on those events; I'm in London and should be back home on Sunday.

As unpredictable as Wolfsburg is, I spotted there three semifinalists. Time to give more credits to Mikhail Kukushkin. In Santiago, Eduardo Schwank, the ex junior #2, shows he wouldn't mind being ranked so high between the seniors as well. He crushed Sebastian Decoud 6-1 6-0.

Deliberations if Ascione is a human or an animal, songs Beck could have sung in the locker room and other things provided by Renaud in his daily report.

Who is the main candidate for the final win out of the ones that left? Maybe Daniel Brands, the finalist from 2007, or... one of the remaining seven quarterfinalists. Where the prize money is low, surface is fast, and players are desperated, everything is possible.