American Andre Agassi returned to the court for the first time since the French Open and showed no ill-effects of the long layoff as he powered by Frenchman Jean-Rene Lisnard 6-1, 6-0 in opening-round action at the $380,000 Mercedes-Benz Cup. The top-seeded Agassi, who had been sidelined with a back injury, had not played since losing to Finland's Jarkko Nieminen in the first round at Roland Garros, but needed just 47 minutes to dispose of Lisnard. Agassi, who entered this tournament with a three-match losing streak, won for the first time since a quarterfinal triumph at the Italian Masters in early May. The legendary Agassi was forced to miss Wimbledon for a second straight year and had hoped to return last week in Indianapolis, but withdrew because the sciatica nerve injury had not properly healed. Agassi, who is 23-9 on the season, is a three-time titlist in LA. He won here in 1998, 2001 and 2002 while posting a runner-up finish in 1999. Other seeded-winners included second-seeded Slovak Dominik Hrbaty and fourth- seeded German Tommy Haas. Hrbaty moved on with an easy 6-4, 6-1 win over his countryman Karol Beck, while Haas defeated hard-serving Croat Ivo Karlovic 6-4, 6-4. Haas, the defending Mercedes-Benz Cup champion, played for the first time since tearing a ligament in his right ankle at Wimbledon. There were two upsets on Day 2 as last-year's runner-up Nicolas Kiefer and ninth-seeded American Vince Spadea fell by the wayside. Kiefer, seeded third this week, was trailing 3-2 in the first set before he was forced to retire against American wild card James Blake due to an illness. American qualifier Zack Fleishman moved into the second round with a 4-6, 6-2, 6-4 win over Spadea. Other winners included American Robby Ginepri, Gilles Muller of Luxembourg, Israeli qualifier Amir Hadad, Czech Jan Hernych and lucky loser Dmitry Tursunov of Russia. Ginepri, who claimed his second-ever ATP singles title by triumphing this past week in Indianapolis, downed Australian Wayne Arthurs 6-4, 6-4. Ginepri, who ousted five seeded players en route to last week's championship, has now won seven straight matches. In other tournament news, fifth-seeded American Taylor Dent was scheduled to meet countryman Mardy Fish, but both men withdrew. Dent, who was forced to retire against Ginepri in Sunday's Indy final due to heat exhaustion, still was not feeling well enough to play, while Fish pulled out with a sore right wrist. Tursunov was called on to replace Dent, while Israeli Noam Okun filled in for the injured Fish. The winner of this week's U.S. Open Series tournament will collect $52,000.