LYON (France), Oct 9: Marat Safin, desperately seeking points to snatch a last-gasp berth in the Masters Cup, beat Franco Squillari 6-4 7-5 on Tuesday in the Lyon Grand Prix first round.

It took Safin just over 90 minutes to knock out the 26-year-old Argentine, a former French Open semifinalist, the Russian firing 12 aces before clinching victory with a service winner on his first match point.

First round results (prefix number denotes seeding):

8-Nicolas Lapentti (Ecuador) beat Paul-Henri Mathieu (France) 6-2 6-2; 2-Juan Carlos Ferrero (Spain) beat Andrea Gaudenzi (Italy) 6-1 6-3; Gaston Gaudio (Argentina) beat Anthony Dupuis (France) 6-4 7-6 (7-4); Michal Tabara (Czech Republic) beat 7-Albert Portas (Spain) 4-6 6-2 6-2; Younes El Aynaoui (Morocco) beat Davide Sanguinetti (Italy) 6-3 6-2

Austrian CA-Trophy results:

First round results from $800,000 CA-Trophy men’s tennis tournament on Monday (prefix number denotes seedings):

Juergen Melzer (Austria) beat 7-Fabrice Santoro (France) 6-7 (8-10) 6-4 6-4; Alberto Martin (Spain) beat Mark Philippoussis (Australia) 3-6 6-3 6-1; Andreas Vinciguerra (Sweden) beat 3-Alex Corretja (Spain) 3-6 6-1 6-4—Reuters