Sydney: India’s Leander Paes and Czech Republic’s Martin Damm defeated Lukas Dlouzy and Pavel Vizner 7-6 (7-2), 6-2 in their opening round tie at the $436,000 Sydney International on Tuesday.

The reigning US Open champions, who reached the final of the Qatar Open in Doha last week, are seeded fourth.

Mahesh Bhupathi and his partner Fabrice Santoro also advanced to the next round. The Indo-French duo beat the Israeli combine Jonathan Erlich and Andy Ram 6-4, 6-3.

Meanwhile, the build up to next week’s Australian Open claimed three more casualties on Tuesday when Rafael Nadal, Svetlana Kuznetsova and Paradorn Srichapahan all pulled out of the meet.

Nadal, the world No.2, was trailing Australian wildcard Chris Guccione 5-6 in the first set when he retired from the last major warm-up event before the Open.

Kuznetsova lost the first set of her second-round match to Katarina Srebotnik when she said she was unable to continue citing breathing problems, while Srichaphan cited a wrist injury for his decision quit against Czech qualifier Ivo Minar.

Nadal, who missed last year’s Australian Open with a foot injury, called for medical help after the seventh game but gave up after just four more games.

He told a news conference he had been failing pain in his right inner thigh but that his decision to pull out was only precautionary. “The trainer told me if I kept playing I might make it worse ... and I wanted to be 100 per cent for the Australian Open.”

James Blake made a flying start to his defence of the men’s title with a 6-3, 6-4 first-round win over fellow American Kevin Kim.