For 2¹/₂ hours yesterday, unseeded and unknown Stephen Bass and No. 5 seed Miles Armstrong traded cross-court forehands and two-fisted backhands for relentless rallies in and out of the shadows on a court at the top of the hill on the first level of the Mt. Lebanon Tennis Complex.

Both players hugged the baseline in a grueling match that ended with Bass a 7-6 (10-8), 7-6 (8-6) winner and Armstrong firing his racket into the net after he sailed a forehand wide left on the final point in the opening round of the $10,000 Futures of Pittsburgh.

"This is a great start for my pro career," said Bass, 22, a recent graduate of Notre Dame who received a USTA wild card into the field. "This is just the beginning in a long year of tennis that hopefully will get me out of the Futures into the Challengers and eventually the ATP Tour."

The Futures is a circuit for rising young players around the world who are ranked between the low 400s and 1,500s. Bass is 1,158 and Australia's Armstrong 664.

Bass, a native of Bronxville, N.Y., who was the Big East Conference performer of the year, hadn't played any competitive tennis the past month since he rolled his right ankle during the NCAA tournament.

"I was playing really good tennis when I got hurt and was in peak shape," he said. "I worked even harder to get back the fitness for tennis I had lost. I was prepared to go three hours, three sets. I'm out here to make it, not here to screw around and have fun. I want to make a living out here, and you can't do that playing in the Futures.

"I'm going to give myself a year and then I'll re-evaluate where I am."

Bass was comfortable on the clay at Mt. Lebanon, where he and Armstrong relied on pinpoint ground strokes and high-kicking serves and rarely ventured to the net. Many of the points were determined by inches or less, and Armstrong became increasingly frustrated when many of the calls went against him. When Armstrong lost a point after a particularly intense rally, he muttered to himself, "Shoot me please, somebody."

Armstrong's theatrics and complaints didn't faze Bass, who stuck to the business of pulling off the upset.

"I've learned to compose myself and not worry about what my opponent's doing," Bass said. "I'm sure he didn't know who I was, and I didn't know anything about Miles. I have to believe I could beat everybody here and that I could lose to everybody here."

Armstrong wasn't the only seeded player from Australia to fall yesterday to one of the four unseeded American players who received a wild card.

Travis Helgeson defeated seventh-seeded Carsten Ball, 6-4, 3-6, 6-3. Helgeson is the lowest-ranked player in the field (1,505) and Ball is 766.

In the only other singles matches, Paul Todd defeated Ruben Gonzalez, 6-2, 6-4, and Adam Fass defeated Nima Roshan, 6-3, 6-3, in matchups of Americans.

Clay Court Championships

The top seeds in the women's and men's singles made it through their first matches, but there were a couple upsets among the lower women's seeds.

Top-seeded Kellie Schmitt, a junior at Marshall who grew up in Bethel Park, defeated Sarah Lotto, 6-2, 6-2; No. 2 Kristy Borza, a junior at Pitt from Beaver High School, defeated Bobbilyn Anthony, 6-3, 6-1; No. 3 Meghan Damico of Denison University and Fox Chapel High School, defeated Jessica Margolis, 6-1, 3-6, 10-2, and No. 5 Alison Riske, a junior at Peters Township High School, defeated Caroline Gerber, 6-2, 6-1.

The seeded losers were No. 4 Carlie Smith of Pitt and No. 6 Jacqueline Hughes, a Duquesne University graduate from McKeesport.

In the men's bracket, No. 1 and defending champion Jordan DeLaff of Samford University defeated Tim Walsh, 6-4, 6-0, and No. 2 Will Plyer of the University of North Carolina, the runner-up last year, defeated A.J. Nelson, 6-1, 6-4.