Jeremy Chardy made light work of Romania's Petru-Alexandru Luncanu to claim his place in the second round of the St Petersburg Open.

The fourth-seeded Frenchman needed just 62 minutes to post a 6-2 6-2 victory against the qualifier and set up a meeting with Ernests Gulbis.

Fifth seed Igor Andreev was also a comfortable winner in his opening match, beating Italy's Potito Starace 6-4 6-2.

But Russian compatriot Evgeny Korolev was not so fortunate, the sixth seed slipping to a surprise 6-4 6-3 loss at the hands of Ukrainian qualifier Sergiy Stakhovsky.

Eighth-seeded Argentinian Horacio Zeballos battled past Yuri Schukin of Kazakhstan 7-6 (11/9) 6-3, while there were also first-round successes for Andrey Kuznetsov, Michail Elgin, Illya Marchenko and Oleksandr Dolgopolov Jr.