Second seed and defending champion Gilles Simon of France dug deep and bounced back from first set down to beat Argentine Carlos Berlocq 4-6, 7-6(5), 6-1 in the first round of 2012 German Open Tennis Championships on Monday.

"I tried to be very aggressive today," said Simon. "I know Carlos is a real warrior. I sometimes don’t have the right shot to hit a winner and that’s something I need to improve in my game. "

He added "Today was the occasion not to try to win this way. I almost lost this match, but I’m very happy that I managed to win it this way."

In other matches of the day, 2009 champion Russian Nikolay Davydenko rallied past Jarkko Nieminen of Finland 5-7, 6-4, 6-0 and Argentina’s Federico Delbonis ousted  2006 champion Tommy Robredo of Spain 5-7, 6-0, 6-1.