• Rome Masters

Ferrero stunned by qualifier in Rome

Juan Carlos Ferrero crashed out at the first hurdle in Rome © Getty Images

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Juan Carlos Ferrero was dumped out of the Rome Masters by Colombian qualifier Santiago Giraldo.

The 2001 champion was stunned as he failed to win a single game in the opening set before slumping to a 6-0 6-3 defeat in under an hour.

Ranked 60 places below the former world No. 1, Giraldo had little problem dealing with the Ferrero serve, breaking his opponent five times and winning nearly 60 per cent of points on the return.

Giraldo will now meet Michael Llodra, who got the better of Andreas Beck 6-2 3-6 6-3.

Tenth seed Tomas Berdych, who missed last week's Barcelona Open with an ankle injury, said that he was pleased with his powers of recovery during his 6-3 6-3 win against Marcel Granollers. "I lost my rhythm a little bit at the beginning of the second set, but I came back to play with confidence and finished the second set quite easily," he told Sky Sports. He is joined in the next round by No. 11 seed Ivan Ljubicic, who beat Paul-Henri Mathieu 7-5 6-7(1) 6-0.

Ernests Gulbis eased into the second round with a 6-2 6-2 victory over Marcos Baghdatis. The Latvian, who reached his first ATP Tour final at Indian Wells last month, broke the Cypriot twice in each set to wrap up a comfortable victory.

He will now meet top seed Roger Federer in the second round. The pair met for the first time in Doha in January, when the Latvian took a set off the world No. 1.

In an afternoon of upsets, Italian wildcard Paolo Lorenzi saw off Albert Montanes 2-6 6-4 6-3, while No. 15 seed Sam Querrey was beaten 7-6(6) 3-6 7-6(2) by Julien Benneteau.

However, No. 14 seed John Isner survived a first set wobble to progress past Horacio Zeballos 4-6 7-6(5) 7-5. Zeballos saved nine break points but was eventually overpowered by the American who will now face the winner of the match between Thomaz Bellucci and Leonardo Mayer.

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