Safin denied 400th victory in Thailand; Robredo, Ferrero advance in Beijing

For the typical tennis fan, you probably haven’t heard of majority of the players who played their first round matches at the Thailand Open in Bangkok this afternoon. One of the players you should know even if you are not a tennis fan is Marat Safin (pictured), who bowed out in the first round to unheard of German player Philipp Petzschner.

In his 20th tournament of the season, the former Australian and US Open champion has now lost in the first round in eight events. In late April, former World No. 1 found himself ranked No. 93 in the South African Airways ATP Rankings. These days he is ranked No. 38 and has recently been playing the type of tennis that once earned him the top ranking in the world. This is all thanks to a semifinal run at Wimbledon, where he lost to grass court master Roger Federer. This afternoon was not the case, as one of Russia’s most famous players had a chance to win his 400th career match, but was denied that milestone, as Petzschner took care of business in a 6-4, 7-6(4) route. Earning just his fourth win of the season, Petzschner smashed 13 aces, while breaking Safin’s serve on four occasions. Safin, who had twice finished as a Bangkok semifinalist, now drops to 20-21 on the season. The German now meets the winner of wild card entrant Robert Smeets and Mischa Zverev, who will do battle on Wednesday.

Another name worth mentioning from Tuesday’s first round action is Benjamin Becker. Becker, a Baylor University graduate, was the finalist in Bangkok last year, but that’s probably not why you know his name. A few years ago, Becker qualified into the US Open main draw and advanced to the fourth round, but in the third round he defeated Andre Agassi, which would be the Las Vegas superstar’s last professional tennis match. Since then Becker hasn’t had the results he was hoping for after his magical run in New York. He currently plays majority of his tournaments in Challenger events in small cities throughout the world. Today he was ousted in the first round to qualifier and solid doubles player Lukas Dlouhy, 6-4, 7-6(4). Dlouhy, a finalist in doubles at the US Open in 2007 and 2008, hit 10 aces in the victory that last roughly 78 minutes. Dlouhy next meets France’s Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, who finished as runner-up at this year’s Australian Open.

Other winners in Bangkok included, No. 6 Robin Soderling, Frenchman Nicolas Mahut and American Robert Kendrick.

At the China Open in Beijing only two singles matches were played, with No. 6 seed Tommy Robredo defeating Guillermo Garcia-Lopez and former French Open champion Juan Carlos Ferrero beating Russian Alexandre Kudryavtsev to advance to the second round. The win for Robredo was his 32nd of the season, while Ferrero won his 17th match of the year.