Dubai upsets as Argentines go out
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DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Argentine second seed and fourth seeds Guillermo Coria and David Nalbandian became the latest victims of upsets at the Dubai Open when they lost first round matches.
Coria crashed 4-6 6-3 6-4 to Russian Mikhail Youzhny and Nalbandian went down 6-3 6-4 to Finn Jarkko Nieminen.
They join third seed Rainer Schuettler, fifth seed Mark Philippoussis and sixth seed Tim Henman on the sidelines.
However, top seed Roger Federer is through to the second round despite a tough battle against Marat Safin.
The Wimbledon and Australian Open champion was taken all the way by the Russian, eventually going through 7-6 7-6 in a repeat of January's Melbourne final.
"I was serving much better in Australia but the conditions were heavy and it was very difficult to hit a winner," said Federer.
Dutch eighth seed Sjeng Schalken also survived to reach the second round with an untroubled 6-3 6-1 win over Sargis Sargsian of Armenia.
Coria and Youzhny struggled to find their rhythm in the first two sets but produced a number of dramatic rallies in the third. Youzhny moved better and struck some fine backhand winners to make him a worthy winner.
Coria took the opening set despite dropping his first service game to love, breaking Youzhny in the third game and once more to lead 3-2.
In the second set, Coria had to fight off two break points to hold for 1-1 before going a break up, but lost five consecutive games after leading 3-1, with Youzhny closing out the set with two aces.
Three early breaks in the final set left Youzhny leading 3-2, but he struggled to close out the match at 5-4. Two double-faults each gave Coria a break point to level at 5-5 but Youzhny survived when Coria sent a backhand wide down the line.