ST PETERSBURG, Oct 24: Top seed Juan Carlos Ferrero suffered a shock 7-6 6-4 defeat by German Rainer Schuettler in the first round of the St Petersburg Open on Wednesday.

The Spaniard, who has a world ranking of five, said he had been feeling off-colour for several days.

“I’m really sorry that I couldn’t play so good, because I didn’t feel good today or for the last two days,” Ferrero said.

He said he had caught a cold in Spain just before travelling to St Petersburg for the tournament, “and the cold weather here didn’t help me get better”.

Schuettler took just over two hours to defeat Ferrero, who hung on to save three set points in the first set, before going down 10-8 in the tie break.

Ferrero was broken in the fourth game of the second set as Schuettler took a 3-1 lead. In the ninth game, the ailing Spaniard again saved three match points on his serve but the German held his next service game to love to take the match.

“I played pretty solidly, although I was choking a little bit in tie break where I had three set points but I was lucky to win,” Schuettler said.

He was dismissive about his opponent’s health complaints, pointing out that this was only second time that the two had met and he had won both times.

“Maybe he was a little tired, but I really didn’t care about his form. I beat him in Hong Kong three weeks ago, and now I have beaten him here again,” added Schuettler, who now meets Czech Daniel Vacek in the second round.

Ferrero has already qualified for the season-ending Masters Cup in Sydney next month, which pits the eight best players of the year against each other.

Wednesday’s results (prefix number denotes seeding):

First round: Andrei Medvedev (Ukraine) beat 4-Tommy Haas (Germany) 3-6 7-6 (9-7) 6-4; 3-Marat Safin (Russia) beat David Prinosil (Germany) 6-4 6-2; Max Mirnyi (Belarus) beat Jiri Novak (Czech Republic) 6-0 7-6 (7-5); Rainer Schuettler (Germany) beat 1-Juan Carlos Ferrero (Spain) 7-6 (10-8) 6-4

Second round 5-Goran Ivanisevic (Croatia) beat Felix Mantilla (Spain) 7-6 (10-8) 7-5; 6-Fabrice Santoro (France) beat Attila Savolt (Hungary) 7-5 1-6 6-3; Michael Llodra (France) beat Vladimir Voltchkov (Belarus) 7-6 (7-1) 6-2

BASLE: First round results from the Swiss indoors ATP tennis tournament on Wednesday (prefix number denotes seeding): 6-Andy Roddick (U.S.) beat Stephane Huet (France) 6-2 3-6 7-6 (7-5); George Bastl (Switzerland) beat 8-Jan-Michael Gambill (U.S.) 6-4 (Gambill retired); Bohdan Ulihrach (Czech Republic) beat Nicolas Lapentti (Ecuador) 6-4 3-6 6-3; Xavier Malisse (Belgium) beat Leos Friedl (Czech Republic) 6-3 6-7 (8-10) 6-2; Nenad Zimonjic (Yugoslavia) beat Fernando Vicente (Spain) 4-6 6-3 6-2—Reuters