• Shanghai Masters

Tsonga over first hurdle in Shanghai

Jo-Wilfried Tsonga is on the comeback from a knee injury © Getty Images

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Jo-Wilfried Tsonga claimed his first victory since his return from a knee injury to progress to the second round at the Shanghai Rolex Masters.

The No. 12 seed, who made his first appearance since June at the Rakuten Japan Open last week, lost his opening round match to Jarkko Nieminen. But the French No. 1 didn't drop a serve as he sealed a 7-6(4) 6-3 win over Feliciano Lopez. After an edgy first set, Tsonga grabbed the momentum in the tiebreak with two aces, and clinched the set with a forehand winner.

While the Frenchman has not played since his quarter-final defeat to Andy Murray at Wimbledon, his serve was the model of consistency - with nine aces and an 81% success rate. But Tsonga was still not happy.

"I think I have to work on everything because when you come back, you lose a lot of things," he said. "I have to practice my serve - my best weapon and also my worst."

Fernando Verdasco suffered his third consecutive defeat at the hands of Thiemo de Bakker in Shanghai. The No. 9 seed, who has struggled for form of late, lost an edgy opening set by virtue of a tie-break, but was deserted by his second serve as he fell 7-6(4) 7-5. Also suffering an premature was Marcos Baghdatis, who was stunned 7-6(4) 6-1 by French qualifier Jeremy Chardy.

Guillermo Garcia-Lopez set up a potential second round meeting with Andy Roddick after the Spaniard beat Eduardo Schwank 6-7 (8) 6-2 6-4. Garcia Lopez, who secured a shock victory over world No. 1 Rafael Nadal in Bangkok before going on to win his first title of the year at the Thailand Open, will now meet either tenth seed Roddick or Phillip Kohlschreiber.

After a lengthy rain delay No. 13 seed Jurgen Melzer also progressed to the second round, but was made to work hard for his 6-4 7-6(5) victory by Taipei wildcard Yang Tsung-Hua.

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