Mon May 5 18:00:14 2008

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Gasquet, Safin fall in Rome

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Rome, Italy (Sports Network) - Ninth-seeded Frenchman Richard Gasquet and former world No. 1 Russian Marat Safin went by the way of first-round upsets Monday at the $3.5 million Italian Masters, a clay-court French Open tune-up.

Gasquet was grounded by Peruvian qualifier Luis Horna 6-4, 6-1, while the wild card Safin succumbed to fellow non-seed Stanislas Wawrinka of Switzerland 6-7 (5-7), 6-2, 6-1 at Foro Italico. The 111th-ranked Horna is now an impressive 10-14 lifetime against top-10 performers.

Thirteenth-seeded Argentine Juan Monaco handled Uruguayan qualifier Pablo Cuevas 6-0, 6-4, while 16th-seeded Brit Andy Murray advanced against qualifier Juan Martin Del Potro 5-7, 6-4, 1-0, as the Argentine retired after one game in the third and final set.

Gritty Argentine Guillermo Canas snuck past wild card and Italian crowd favorite Gianluca Naso 6-7 (8-10), 6-3, 6-2 on Day 1 here, while Italian Potito Starace topped Croat Marin Cilic 6-4, 2-6, 6-4, Czech Radek Stepanek edged out Finn Jarkko Nieminen 6-3, 3-6, 6-3 and American Mardy Fish held off Frenchman Michael Llodra 7-5, 3-6, 7-6 (7-2). Up next for Canas will be top- seeded superstar Roger Federer, the 2006 Rome runner-up, while Fish will encounter sixth-seeded fellow American Andy Roddick here on Tuesday.

Additional opening-round wins came for Belgian Steve Darcis, Russians Igor Andreev and qualifier Evgeny Korolev, Spaniard Nicolas Almagro, Frenchman Nicolas Mahut and Italian Andreas Seppi, who defeated veteran Frenchman Fabrice Santoro 6-4, 6-2. This marked Santoro's last match at this event, as he will retire from the ATP at season's end. Darcis will face third-seeded Australian Open champion and U.S. Open runner-up Novak Djokovic here on Wednesday.

Rain interrupted play a couple of times here on Monday.

Spanish clay-court king Rafael Nadal is the reigning three-time Rome champion and fresh off his fourth straight Barcelona championship last week. Nadal beat Chilean Fernando Gonzalez in last year's Rome finale and is an amazing 103-1 in his last 104 matches overall on his beloved on clay.

This week's winner will take home $558,000.