Fifth seed Andreas Seppi and former world number one Lleyton Hewitt were big-name first-round casualties at the Open de Nice Cote d’Azur.
Seppi looked to have steadied the ship after losing the first set to Chinese Taipei’s Yen-Hsun Lu, as he won the second while dropping only one game, but the match swung back Lu’s way and he went on to win 7-5 1-6 6-4.
It was the third tournament in a row in which Seppi has fallen at the first hurdle, following defeats to Tommy Haas at the Mutua Madrid Open and Fabio Fognini at the Internazionali BNL d’Italia in Rome.
Having dropped to number 85 in the rankings, Hewitt’s loss to Pablo Andujar was less of a shock, particularly after the Spaniard’s impressive run to the final in Madrid.
The Australian was playing his first match in six weeks and levelled the match from a set down, but was eventually beaten 6-3 4-6 6-3 in a match featuring 10 breaks of serve.
Romania’s Victor Hanescu came through a two-hour, 43-minute dogfight against Spaniard Albert Ramos 6-3 5-7 6-4.
There were one-sided wins for Carlos Berlocq, who beat fellow Argentinian Leonardo Mayer 6-2 6-1, and Dutchman Robin Haase, 6-1 6-4 over Marinko Matosevic of Australia.