Ferrero, Querrey beaten at Italian Masters

ROME, April 26 (UPI) -- Seeded players Juan Carlos Ferrero and Sam Querrey were ousted Monday in first-round action of the Italian Masters clay-court tennis tournament in Rome.

Ferrero, seeded 12th, was routed 6-0, 6-3 by Santiago Giraldo in less than an hour. Giraldo won 61 percent of the match's points, including 59 percent of the points off Ferrero's serve.

Julien Benneteau took a marathon 7-6 (8-6), 3-6, 7-6 (7-2) decision from the 15th-seeded Querrey. Benneteau won just four more points --124-120 -- over the course of the match but controlled the tie-breakers to advance.

No. 10-seeded Tomas Berdych stopped Marcel Granollers 6-3, 6-3 and 11th-seeded Ivan Ljubicic dominated the third set in a 7-5, 6-7 (1-7), 6-0 win over Paul-Henri Mathieu.

Other matches involving seeded players Monday saw No. 14-seeded John Isner rally behind 20 aces for a 4-6, 7-6 (7-5), 7-5 win over Horacio Zeballos and No. 16-seeded Juan Monaco defeat Igor Andreev 7-6 (7-4), 7-5.

Also winning Monday were Ernests Gulbis, Filippo Volandri, Philipp Kohlschreiber, Paolo Lorenzi, Michael Llodra, Potito Starace and Guillermo Garcia-Lopez.