Sydney, Chennai: Third seed Fernando Verdasco of Spain crashed out of the first round of the Brisbane International yesterday, suffering an upset 6-1 6-7 6-3 loss to Germany's Benjamin Becker.
Verdasco, a semi-finalist at the Australian Open in 2009, recovered from a listless start to grind out the second set but had few answers in the third as Becker played a faultless service game to seal the match in just over two hours.
"I had a good game plan and it worked well today," 53rd-ranked Becker said after setting up a second round match with Colombia's Santiago Giraldo.
"It is always good to get a win under your belt... and its not every day you beat a top 10 player."
The 27-year-old Verdasco will have one more competitive warm-up before the January 17-30 Australian Open — at the invitational Kooyong Classic in Melbourne next week, where he will defend his title.
After beating Frenchman Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the final at Kooyong last year, the feisty Spaniard advanced to the fourth round at Melbourne Park but was edged in a five-set thriller by Russia's Nikolay Davydenko.
Forced to withdraw
In the women's draw, Italy's Flavia Pennetta was forced to withdraw due to a gastrointestinal illness, organisers said.
She was scheduled to play compatriot Roberta Vinci but would be replaced by American lucky loser Christina McHale.
Meanwhile, lines persons at the Aircel ATP Chennai Open in India have come out on top following the introductory implementation of the Hawk-Eye electronic review system, a referral for line call challenges by players.
In all, 15 challenges were made against line calls in the four matches spread over 11 sets that were played on the Centre Court of the SDAT Stadium on the opening day on Monday, official statistics show.
The lines persons were proved right on nine occasions, but incorrect six times.
The most number of challenges were in the first round doubles match between India's Mahesh Bhupathi-Leander Paes and Frank Dancevic (Canada)-Stanislas Wawrinka (Switzerland) with a total of eight challenges, three of which were correct.
The Indians, who won in three sets, had a 1-2 win-loss record as against their opponents' 2-3 for a match total of 3-5.
The next highest was in another doubles match involving Indians Somdev Devvarman-Sanam Singh and Robin Haase (Netherlands)-David Martin (US) that had three challenges, two of which were correct.
Straight sets
Second seed and defending champion Marin Cilic of Croatia, while going down in straight sets to Japan's Kei Nishikori, lost both his challenges while the winner did not seek any referral.
Serbian sixth seed Janko Tipsarevic made one successful challenge during his straight set win against Argentine Eduardo Schwank, who lost his only challenge.
RESULTS
(prefix denotes seeding, * new result)
* Matthew Ebden (Australia) beat John Millman (Australia) 4-6 6-2 6-4
* Richard Berankis (Lithuania) beat Arnaud Clement (France) 6-4 6-3
* 4-Mardy Fish (U.S.) beat Adrian Mannarino (France) 6-1 6-4
* Kevin Anderson (South Africa) beat Peter Luczak (Australia) 6-4 6-4
Benjamin Becker (Germany) beat 3-Fernando Verdasco (Spain) 6-1 6-7(2) 6-3
Radek Stepanek (Czech Republic) beat Tobias Kamke (Germany) 5-7 6-1 6-4
